Board of Commissioners · Regular Meeting · November 3, 2025

So, as we convene for the Dorm County Commissioners meeting, it's crucial to recognize the painful truth of history. We stand on the stolen ancestral lands of the Kotaba, the Eno, the Okinichi, the Shakori, and the Tusccoora peoples whose deep connection to this land predates our arrival. We acknowledge with humility the unjust displace displacement and violence that occurred leading to the dispossession of ind indigenous peoples from their homelands. Their resilience in the face of such adversity is a testament to their strength and spirit.

May we humbly honor the ancestors and elders of these nations, both past and present. By committing ourselves to fostering understanding, healing, and justice for all who inhabit this land, let us walk forward together with open hearts, acknowledging the past, and embracing a future guided by compassion, respect, and unity. >> Thank you, Commissioner Valentine. And we are going to have a little bit of a different meeting today just because at our last regular session uh we didn't

have quorum. So there are items from our consent agenda that have been moved to here. So we will be suspending the rules when it comes to that to be able to vote to approve those items. But before we get to that we are going to have our resident comments beginning with we have uh 10 individuals signed up to speak.

I will call you up five at a time or three at a time. And if you come up to this microphone over on the left, please make sure that you turn it on. The light will turn green when it's on. And you'll have three minutes each.

Bob Albertson, Leslie Temple. >> Okay. So it's you can have three minutes and then um I know you spoke with uh Shaughnessy that she can speak for herself. She can't seed her time to you additional time but she can speak after you. >> So you can't essentially you can't have six minutes. You can have three minutes

and she can have three minutes >> but she has to speak. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.

Well, you'll be at that podium. >> Yes. Thank you. >> Yep.

Yeah. Yeah. And then Tom Clark, you'll be the third. >> Ready?

Okay. Hello. My name is Bob Alverson and I represent citizens of the North Durham Community Alliance. I want the board to recognize a few things that were noticed in the agenda attachments that are missing or incorrect.

First, there is no railroad title opinion or title presented to the board or public as stated by the conservation funds. The citizens have repeatedly requested proof of title with no response from the project administrators. To date, the fee simple ownership of the railway is undetermined. Second, Durham Open Space

and Trails Commission in their October 21st, 2025 letter to the county commissioners fabricates that residents support the project is 81%. I have personally been to three meetings in Bahama and Rougemont on this project and over 96% of the residents attending these meetings are against the proposed trail and its funding. To say that North Durham is supportive of the proposed project is frankly an insult to the citizens you represent. Third, the East Coast Greenway Alliance admits in their attachment that they have not received funding as of yet of the $1 million to give toward the city county costs.

This is only a wish to secure the funds at this point. Fourth, the rail corridor is described as a 100 ft in width when it is actually 60 ft according to many titles with meets and bounds descriptions of the properties at the Durham reser deeds. Fifth, there is no community engagement. There was no community engagement to discuss the project until the beginning of 2025 and any engagement has been siloed as to prevent opinions and suggestions of the

North Durham community. I understand this is not a meeting to approve the actual building of the proposed trail. This meeting today is whether to obligate county taxpayer funds to determine who has title [clears throat] to the rail corridor, funding for an environmental impact and survey of the rail corridor and funding for acquisition of the railway. What is not in the funding and scope of the work is the legal costs to be incurred by the county to resolve these issues.

There are reasons why Durham has separate city county governance and is this proposed trail project stands as a good example. As explained in the fiscal impact portion of the agenda action form supplement document to the county commissioners, the county commissioners are being asked to provide county taxpayer funds for acquisition of a railway in the unincorporated area of Durham County with no commitment to approve or fund a trail in the future. As you know, the unincorporated area of North Durham is designed as a watershed buffer and has been limited in its development and imperous soil requirements for years so that clean

drink drinking water can be supplied to the city of Durham. These limitations prevent rapid growth as we have seen in the eastern and southern portions of the county should the unincorporated area of Rouge in North Durham seek municipal incorporation like it did in 2006. an incorporation ballot measure. You may remember that failed by only nine votes, then that township of Rougemont will have zoning and budgeting authority for the development in its territorial jurisdiction.

The issue of an unwanted trail encroaching into the northern wershed. >> You can pass to your wife now. Thank you. >> Okay.

>> Okay. >> If you does she need to >> just catch up start where he >> does she need to start or can I can I keep speaking? >> The procedure would be that your wife would take over the time. >> Okay.

I'll tell you what to start with just so they can re reiterate start us here. >> Okay, move this down a bit. As explained in the fiscal impact portion of the agenda action form supplemental document, the

county commissioners are being asked to provide county taxpayer funds for acquisition of a railway in the unincorporated area of Durham with no commitment to approve or fund a railway a trail in the future. As you know, the unincorporated area of North Durham is designed as a watershed buffer and has been limited in its development and impervious soil requirements for years so that clean drinking water can be supplied to the city of Durham. These limitations prevent rapid growth as we have seen in the eastern and southern portions of the county should the unincorporated area of Rougemont in North Durham seek mis municipal incorporation like it did in 2006 in incorporation ballot measuring as you may remember that failed by only nine votes. Then that township of Rougemont will have zoning and budgeting authority for development in its territorial jurisdiction. The issue of an unwanted trail encroaching into the northern watershed protection area has a high probability of galvanizing support for a municipal incorporation by the North

Durham Community Alliance. Most railto trail projects are located and utilized within city boundaries. The city of Durham can and should move forward with funding the trail as they do now as it will take many years to develop and build the trail within these city boundaries. If development in the northern tier of Durham County is desired in the future by its citizens, a bond referendum to fund the creation of a northern trail can be placed on the ballot for them to decide.

Make no mistake, the creation of a trail, as described, would be a cost to the hundreds of millions of dollars to the taxpayers of Durham County. And a decision of this magnitude for a trail that has a pro high probability of never being built should not be taken lightly. The North Durham Community Alliance is recommending to the Durham County Commissioners that there be no suspension of rules and that the commissioners table any agreements that will commit the county taxpayers to this proposed railway acquisition and project. If you have any questions or would like to schedule a meeting, please contact us at the email provided.

>> Okay. >> And we've given six copies. So you may I think you all can get a copy of that for your future reference. >> Thank you.

>> Thank you so much. >> Thank you. And is Tom Clark here? Okay, then I'll go on to the next three.

Sandro Ridenberry. Sandra, Charles Sanford, and Heidi Greyel. Good morning. My name is Sandra Writenberry and I'm here today to represent the thousands of citizens in Durham and Pson County and handd deliver their voices with the petition. They are strongly opposed to the 26 Durham to Roxboro railto trail project. The

dishonest grant study which was done in 2023 was very unset upsetting. The grant study led to the approval of the feasibility study which was performed by destination of design and tool design. Both studies were completely re misrepresented the citizens of Durham and Roxboro. The flawed study results are misleading.

For example, the property owners impacted by the proposed project were not adequately informed. Instead, they only included hiking clubs, biking groups, and other similar organizations who are not even local citizens of Durham or Roxboro community. Most of the surveys obtained by Destination by Design and Tool Design were from other areas. There were 88 zip codes represented and most were non-local participants. The public workshops were not appropriately announced at most people received their postcards a few days prior to the events. This left little time for attendance at the workshops for the

communities affected. Please review the 373 participants who attended the workshops. The workshops had very little representation from Durham or the Roxboro communities. The lack of the community involvement for these projects were created a false narrative and was extremely misleading to the Triangle West TPO community and the Durham County Board of Commissioners.

The fieldwork pictures of the study shows visible railroad tracks, empty streets, old railroad station in Rougemont, and only one homeowner being interviewed. It does not include the thousands of homeowners affected. The fieldwork pictures for the trail fails to show the miles of the wildlife reserve which allows hunting activities in northern Durham County. Also fails to recognize the operating gun shop in Bahama and the Tavern Bar in Rougemont

which features a lot of motorcyclists located next to the railroad track. Also not shown are the thousands of rural homeowners and farms, the blue line streams for endangered aquatic life, the numerous flood planes, the clean water reservoirs, the multiple filtering wetlands located along the 26mile railtorail corridor. The study keeps mentioning no intimate domain. However, Norport Southern Railroad filed for abandonment decades ago.

The overgrown railed has created a private and a peaceful condition. The neighborhoods are being destroyed by the proposed trail which will run in their backyards. The harm to the wildlife, the destruction of >> Thank you, Sandra. >> The injury to the animals and the pollution of the rivers and stream and the damages of the news river basin.

>> Thank you, Sandra. >> Okay. Thank you. >> One more section will deliver destroy

the mature hardwoods, >> Miss Sandra. We have uh several other speakers lined up. So, thank you. >> Oh, can you make sure you turn on your mic?

Thank you. Oh, and please introduce yourself. >> Good morning. My name is Charles Sanford.

The focal point of the rail also focuses on the increase in property value for Durham Person County residents who live adjacent to the trail or in close proximity. You are the elected officials for Durm County, which means you were elected by residents of Durm County, [clears throat] not surrounding counties. This also means you must represent Durm County residents and no others. People move out of cities into the country for serenity and privacy and take pride in their property. Now you want to have a hiking trail on abandoned property and have train uh have

strangers invading that privacy who will throw their trash on the ground. Some with dogs ignore the bag rolls. Some do pick up after their dogs then leave the bags on the ground expecting someone else to pick up their trash. My wife and I already pick up trash on the road frontage and will now have to tend with trash, [clears throat] excuse me, on the back side of our property.

This is being touted as a community-led initiative, and it is not. Property owners were not notified of the proposed project until out ofstate attorneys notified those along the rail corridor in December of 24. Planning staff sent out over 1,700 postcards which arrived the week of August the 11th. The only reason those were sent out was because I called out the planners at a meeting in Bahama for their lack of transparency. The supporting respondents are from 88 zip codes while Durham County has only 12 zip codes, excuse me, 16 zip codes. So, how is this a community-led

initiative? Trayon Industrial Park has a nuclear reactor used by a medical products manufacturer and two drug manufacturers which border the trail and security to those sites would be jeopardized. Planning teams have not done any research into industrial hazards and security concerns at the industrial park. [clears throat] There's federal game plan involved and the potential for safety issues as a reality.

A missed shot could easily ricochet causing a serious injury or fatality to trail users. No thoughts or consideration on the part of the planners concerning safety. Additional concerns I want to mention. Inadequate access for fire and EMS response.

Lack of consideration for the history of the Sapani Indians who resided in person in northern Durham County. Violation of the habitat and ecosystem for animals, plants, and aquatic life. This will cross the watersheds of Lake Mickey and

the Little River Reservoir. Your drinking water comes from Bahama and this trail cuts through both systems. Disturbance of the rail bed will cause the creassote used to treat the original wood to further leech into the ground and watershed. There are hazards in your constituents are asking you not to fund the Durham to Roxboro trail plan.

Thank you, >> Charles. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> And as Heidi comes up, the next folks I have are Ricky Smith, Dave Connley, and Dale McKielle.

[clears throat] >> Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you about our citizen concerns regarding this railto plan from Durham to Roxboro. My name is Heidi Greybel, a Durham County resident of 10607 Wilkins Road, Rougemont. You have been given a copy of the more than 1,000 citizen opposition letters signed within a four-week period and our reasons for opposition, including the environmental ch damages to both our

soils and water runoff into our Durham County reservoirs from the deconstruction of the railway bed introducing the leaking decomposing chemicals from the creassote railroad ties and the lack of the following the 6% imperous surface limits that the critical watershed of the Noose River Basin requires this trail will be installed at 12 to 14% or greater. There have been no surveys of animals and plants impacted by this project along the Flat River, Little River and Eno Rivers. The tagline for this project reads online as a communitydriven initiative. This must mean the East Coast Greenway Alliance community because the citizens of Bragtown, Bahama, and Rougemont only found out about this project from the out ofstate attorney letters offering to represent us for possible damages we may be entitled to. Person County residents found out by hearsay. A vote in favor of this project must include a clear vision and direction and action and commitment

by each of you to improve the budgets and resources for our EMS services and police and sheriff departments which are operating at critically understaffed levels. We the citizens of Baha, Bragtown, Rougemont, Timberlake, and Roxboro want to ask if you, the Durham County Commissioners, are certain about exactly what you are voting to spend million of tax dollar taxpayer dollars on because it has not been made clear to us regarding number one, the legal process of abandonment, number two, the deeds or easements of each property along the Norfolk Southern Railway path, including the several large parcels in both Durham and Person county which appear to have severed their ownership by the railroad. This requires physically going to Washington DC where the individual copies of deeds from the 1880s are held to discover if in fact these properties are by right or by easement. Number three, whether the railroad property can in fact legally be purchased by NC DOT. We are requesting a

copy of the Interstate Commerce Commission decision of abandonment. I have provided two email chains regarding the questions we have asked of Evan Hart with NC DOT for your review. This information needs to be paid public knowledge and is not clear at this point if NC DOT can buy the rights through the surface transportation board abandonment and the rail banking process. There is much legal gray area in this process.

We the citizens are actively engaged in legal discovery and will take action if it is found that taxpayer dollars have been wasted upon this project without the correct legal steps and processes. Thank you for your service to our citizens. >> My name is Ricky Smith. I live at 1316 Bahama Road. If we're not the closest home to the rail, uh, we're one of our house

house, bedroom window is 62 feet from the railroad. So, I've got a front row seat to to this new trail. Um, our property line is 12 feet from our house to the property line of the railroad. So, I literally could reach out my bedroom window and shake hands with people walking down this trail.

So, we're really going to be impacted. Our main concern is our privacy and our safety. We're also concerned, everybody else has already covered most of the points that that's important to us, but maintenance on this thing. Are they going to pick up the trash?

Security. How are we going to keep people off of it at night? How are they going to keep people from riding motorcycles and four-wheelers right down the trail again 12 feet from my bedroom window? So, I'm I'm asking that you consider us property owners also

that are going to be more impacted because we're so close to the trails. Thank you. Good morning. I'm Dave Connelly at live three Lance Spring Place in Durham County.

I encourage the commissioners to approve the agenda item that would help purchase the Norfick Southern Rail Corridor. This is the public investment opportunity of a generation. The people in Durham and our local governments have been attempting to acquire this linear gem since the 1980s, and the time to act is now. Rail trails and other greenways are vital public resources.

They're good for recreation, transportation, conservation, the local economy, and most of all for improving public health. The Durham to Roxboro Rail Trail, its working title, would become a daily amenity for all of Durham and Durham County. Even those who currently fear a

trail would wind up being uh enjoyable users of it. Uh when the trail connects to the downtown rail trail and the American Tobacco Trail, Durham will become the hub of 50 connected miles of shared use trail, attracting nationwide interest in visiting Durham. The time to invest is now. Norfick Southern has been a patient, good faith partner in preparing for this transaction.

The price is right. The opportunity is presented now. As Norfk Southern is being acquired by another railroad, we don't know how amenable an Omaha headquarters would be. So, the time to invest in this corridor is now.

Thank you. >> Good morning, uh, chair and commissioners. Uh, my name is Dale McKielle. I live at uh 3559 Hamstead Court in Durham and I am a member of the Durham Open Space and Trails Commission.

You have a letter from the commission in your packet and we urge you to uh support the acquisition and development of the of this rail corridor between Durham and Roxboro. Um the residents have raised a lot of of legitimate concerns and I think when a trail like this is being is being planned and proposed um there is a lot of concern about the unknown. What will this what will this trail bring? There are a lot of trails throughout the country uh that are in rural areas and I believe a lot of their concerns can be addressed through the design process to ensure both safe and to ensure the safety, ensure the environmental concerns, ensure privacy and uh and ensure the maintenance and and uh daily operations uh concerns that have been raised. Uh I also live about a 100 yards from a trail and uh that trail was built after I had purchased my home and in my neighborhood

there was also a lot of concern about the potential effects of having a having a trail in our community. Um but I would say uh that trail's been in place now for about 15 years. It's a it's a community asset that we all love and appreciate. I use it weekly.

I use it almost every day honestly. And um and and I as as has been stated in this letter uh and previously uh once once these trails are built, they are extremely popular. They are being built in rural areas all across North Carolina as we speak. And I would encourage you just to move forward with this acquisition so we can proceed.

Thank you. >> Thank you. And we have a few more. Barbara, I'm sorry Barbara, I cannot pronounce your last name, but introduce yourself when you come. And Gregory Williams, and then once again asking, is Tom Clark

here? Okay, go ahead, Barb. >> Hi, my name's Barbara Verbedian. Uh, I live in the Treyburn subdivision.

Uh we pay both city and county taxes. Um our some of our homes and property areas will be significantly uh affected by this trail and we are opposed to it being there. The study keeps mentioning no eminent do domain. However, Norfolk Southern Railroad filed for abandonment decades ago.

The overgrown railed has created a private peaceful condition. The neighborhoods are being destroyed by the proposed trail which will ruin their backyards. The harm to wildlife, the destruction of birds, the injury to animals, the pollution of rivers and streams, the

damage to the news river water basin, and destruction of the mature hardwood trees will cause irre irreversible damage. The focal point of the trail also focuses on the increase in pop property values. We don't believe that that's likely to be the case. We believe it'll increase property taxes and actually make it much harder to uh sell property.

Um connecting communities seems to be the main focal point of the study. Does connecting communities mean destroying the privacy of homeowners and their property? Uh the thousands of citizens that we're here to represent ask that you take the time to hear and read their concerns about the proposed 26 milei railto trail project linking Durham to Roxboro. This unused, overgrown railroad track

needs to be left alone to protect the environment and the citizens of Durham and Roxur. I would also ask that we also get more information. Previous speakers have talked about the fact that homeowners didn't know about this till we heard from lawyers outside of this state. There is no real public information other than trolling websites and I think it's important that we know more about when these meetings are going to occur and what is going on.

Thank you for your time. Good morning Durham County Board of Commissioners. I'm Gregory Williams of 407 Walton Street here in Durham. Thank you all very much uh for allowing me to be here. I'm here speaking on behalf of Bike Durham. Um and we're speaking in strong support of the county funding the

Durham to Roxboro Rail Trail. When the American Tobacco Trail was first proposed, many people had concerns about the cost, who might use it, and whether it would really serve the community. But over time, the AT has become one of the most beloved and transformative public spaces in Durham County. It connects neighborhoods, brings people outdoors, supports small businesses, and makes our county stronger and healthier.

This Durham Roxboro Rail Trail has that same potential. This project isn't just a walking and biking path. It's a connector between communities that have long since been separated. It offers a safe and affordable way for residents to reach jobs, parks, and local businesses without needing a car.

I know some people worry about the potential misuse or safety along the trail, but those concerns shouldn't outweigh the benefits that it brings. The best way to keep public spaces safe is to keep them active and loved. When more people are

using a space, safety naturally follows. Trails like this bring life and movement to areas that may otherwise be overlooked. Projects like this are also smart investments. Trails boost local economies, attract visitors, and improve public health, all while reducing emissions and transportation costs.

They help create the kind of Durham that we want to live in. Connected, vibrant, and welcoming. I take the bus and I bike most days, and I see firsthand how much infrastructure like this changes what's possible for people. Over the past year, Bike Durham has heard from hundreds of residents who are genuinely excited about this project.

Many may not be in this room today, but they're watching this conversation closely. They see the rail trail as proof that Durham County is committed to bu building a future where everyone can move safely and freely. On behalf of Bike Durham and the residents who believe in people centered, connected Durham, I want to thank you for your leadership and urge your continued support for this

transformative project. Thank you'all. >> Thank you. Thank you so much to everyone who signed up to speak.

I'm gonna ask one last time. Tom Clark, you here? Okay. No.

Um, so thank you everyone who came here to speak. We also received lots of emails. Thank you so much. Those will all the written emails and comments we received from individuals as well as I know Commissioner Jacobs received a message from Steve Taller will be included in our minutes um that will be available for folks after the meeting is published.

Thank you. We will now move to our consent agenda and these are the items that have been moved. We'll first go over the consent agenda items from our October 27th regular session meeting that were not voted on last meeting. Are there any items that any commissioner would like to ask questions about or poll? Commissioner Jacobs.

Okay. So, we're looking at from the 27th. >> Yes. Okay.

>> So, 25-0453 is this first item. >> Okay. Um I just have a bunch of notes here if you give me one second. Um I guess one one question I did have related to um 25-0453 which is um adding additional funding to the early years. Um I program which I do fully support. Um, I was just wondering if there is currently a plan from early years about how this additional funding will be used and also will we get any follow-up information about, you know, how how these additional funds are implemented.

And John Kefir will um give an update. We we definitely have plans for how the dollars will be used. Um I will also note that um there are overall um highlights on our ARPA funds that uh we'll share with the board as well and John I'll let you discuss further. >> Sure.

Good morning commissioners. Uh yes, Commissioner Jacobs. Uh we have worked closely with the early years leadership team to um amend the scope of work and the budget for the existing grant to incorporate the additional funds. Um the funding will be used to continue the stipens um that we had been providing previously with ARPA funds to income eligible families to allow for children 0 to three to um attain child care services in Durham County. Uh it will expand services to four and 5year-olds. um and will uh support the provision of

wraparound services for children that have additional needs to ensure that the child care services are able to fully meet the developmental needs of the participating children. Um and then the funding will also be used to support an expanded placement and weight list tool for uh the child care subsidy program and for uh Durham prek more large uh more largely. Um so we we've we've got the full amount accounted for. Um it's a continuation of the existing project.

Uh each of the elements was previously contemplated um and were able to carry them out in a more comprehensive and robust way with the additional funding. >> Okay. Because I remember during the budget, we were kind of given an outline of, you know, this funding will fund this many children or this number of families for wrap care. So, um I guess I would love to see when it is

available just understanding at some point what what has been the outcome of this funding. How many people or families were we actually able to serve? >> Yes, >> we we've been collecting the performance data throughout and are preparing my team is preparing reports um as we not necessarily as we speak but that will be available either this month or at the beginning of next month um and then we'll do another report uh probably in the middle of the winter um with updated data through uh the end of the calendar year. >> Okay, great.

Thank you. Thank you. >> And I was going to note, John, if you don't mind um resharing the last report um because it will give some highlights as to where we are to date. I think that'll be helpful. >> Yes, I can resend the the previous two reports that we had put together and and we'll provide again updated reports for both of those. One's for the community grants and one is for the strategic

initiatives and joint partnerships and we are working to update those to provide um new new versions with updated data to the board as we as we speak. >> Okay. And are those reports on the ARPA website? >> We uh they historically have been on the website.

We we're making some tweaks. So, right at this moment, they may not be up there, but yes, >> we're also working on the ARPA website generally as part of the the broader DECO website transition. It's going to be moved under uh the organizational effectiveness department um to allow for more timely updates and um re-evaluating some of the content that we have available to make sure that we're doing our best to communicate the full impact of these funds. >> Thank you.

>> You any other items? Okay. Then I will entertain a motion to suspend the rules. >> So move.

Second >> moved by Vice Chair Dr. Lee. Second by

Commissioner Burton. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed?

Hey. The rules are suspended. Now I will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda from the October 27th regular session. >> So moved.

>> Second. >> Moved by Commissioner Burton, second by Commissioner Valentine. All in favor say I. >> I.

I. >> Any opposed? Okay. Consent from October 27th is approved.

We will now move to today's consent agenda and I will pass it to Manager Hager. I'll just note that we have 20 minutes allotted for this item and we have a couple of presentations. So to keep us flowing, let's try to keep our comments as clean as possible. >> Okay, great.

All right. The first item is 25524. This is an approval of a 10-year contract with Axen Enterprise, Inc. 1 million for the purchase of replacement and additional taser equipment for the Durham County Sheriff's Office.

I'll go first. Um, just wondering, I know we recently did another uh taser equipment replacement purchase. So, is that with a different company or is it that we have I feel like it was like a year, two years ago. I there's another >> sure I'll have someone from the sheriff's office to um help with this response >> but we did approve a contract for this uh for the taser equipment.

This will amend that particular one and replace it and um if the sheriff's staff can clarify that for me. Oh, I was wondering because I remember that we had within like the last year or two years that there was something that came to us for approval on the taser replacements and so wanted clarification if this is different from that is this additional tasers. >> Uh good morning commissioners. Uh I

recall that being about four years ago uh and it was a replacement. Yeah. >> Was a replacement >> and yeah, the grant funds >> lease, right? >> So, approximately four years ago, we did a lease agreement um for the tasers.

And so, with this 10-year contract is a new lease agreement, but I also think due to the cost, we may have come back each year um for board approval to pay that lease amount. So that might be what you're thinking about because anything over what is it 100,000 has to come for you for approval. So the lease was four years ago and probably each year we've come before you to get the annual payment approved. >> Oh. So even though we already like we approved the lease, we still have to do a yearby-year approval even though it's been approved at the beginning >> for that particular issue. There could have been a um budget uh adjustment that

was needed which required additional board approval. We can follow up on that prior to the board approving the item at the next meeting. >> I think that >> Yeah, >> we'll do that. >> Thank you.

Okay, Commissioner Jacobs. >> Yeah, I have a number of questions about this item. Um, first of all, is this money wi, you know, which is over $3 million, is this already in the existing budget? This this will be appropriated annually.

So, there's an there's an amount that's already in the budget. >> And how much is that? the amount is for the current um allocation and I'll have one of the staff members um clarify that but at that amount is close to $140,000. >> Okay. >> Good morning. Dwayne Brson, assistant county manager in this year's budget is 153 which will be

>> which will be counted as the first year of payment towards this contract. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So, this $3 million, which is a lot of money, uh is over three million, is for 10 a 10-year period.

Is that clear? Is that the Okay. Um but that's still more than if you did 140,000 per year. Um, so I guess what I'm trying to understand was did we origin because this is a 30% increase in the number of tasers, right? This is not just replacing the existing number but also increasing the numbers 30%. 4 million to 3

million which is double the amount if I'm just trying to understand what we're really doing here. >> Yeah. Commission >> where the money is coming from. [laughter] >> Sure.

>> Yeah. Commissioner Jacobs, we we have been expanding our taser uh stock for for the past four years and we are implementing uh adding additional tasers into the detention center. Uh they've proven to be effective uh along our use of force continuum. So we are adding uh new additional tasers as well as these are new tasers.

This is the next generation. I have the taser uh representative here with me now. he can talk about the uh the product itself and uh the effectiveness of the new taser and some of the bells and whistles so to speak. So it's the different same device, different product if you will.

>> Good morning everyone. Yes. So I wanted to clarify a couple things. So oh Julian Brown with Axon Enterprises based out of Atlanta. I'm the senior regional

manager. Um I put together the original contract as well as working on this new one. I've been your representative for about the last 11 years. So to clarify, it was four and a half years the original agreement and that agreement is coming to an end.

This is actually kind of a renewal. Um also what's built in this renewal plan is we built it out for 10 years. You have been a partner of ours for over 17 years using the Taser products and some of our accessories and our software. So what we did, we put together a plan to save your agency and your county money in the future by shuring up and securing today's discounts, today's pricing to then instead of me coming back in five more years getting the same product or upgraded product, we shared the pricing between today's that is going to extend all the way for the next 10 years.

So you'll get a refresh of our new devices after the five years. You're getting newer platform because the platform you currently have will go end of life by 2027. Your original agreement right now ends in 2025 and so it's going to start

the new agreement with the new tasers. Now the latest tasers also include VR. The VR also includes three separate modules that cover one module is crisis intervention training. 31 um scenarios that cover autism, schizophrenia, um PTSD, homelessness, drug intervention, corrections.

is going to have all these dis decision-making processes that the deputy correction officer can also go through to increase deescalation when they are engaging with the community. The second is also use of force transition that you'll be able to do with the VR. You can use it remotely and be monitored by a supervisor that allows that um allows remediation for the um um for the correctional officer or the deputy to look for ways to train better when they are engaging with the community. And then lastly, there's another module that covers an actual simulation. You can now work in this world where you look around you real life and you can manage how they

interact and then the actual AI is going to interact back with the deputy. So these situations will allow them to work on deescalation. It could rise to maybe using their firearm or their taser or just verbalizing to deescalate the entire situation. The increase that you're seeing in this agreement is number one cost of production.

Of course, the pricing that you had 5 years ago is not the same. There is inflation. Um there's also things that we do create and build here in America. So we are at the liberty of production here.

So you're having inflation from 2020 when your first pricing came around. You also have cost of production. You also have tariffs, but also there is growth. There's growth built into here for another 50 users.

So you're looking at different count of users on the original agreement to an increased user amount as well as that increase of inflation. So you're seeing that number also the number that you're saying if you kind of feel like it isn't it's a little bit higher than normal. It's over a 10ear span. So your year-over-year is going to go up a little bit but that's also

including the growth and also all the applications that you guys are going to use for public safety purposes. >> Um thank you. And I did in the PowerPoint that was included I guess from from you all. Um I just was wondering I know that you referred or your company referred to um the potential for this to actually reduce the use of you know firearms.

>> Yes. >> But I I just wonder and maybe this is a question for you for the for the sheriff. Um could you share with us the data around that and also any data that the office of the sheriff has been keeping um about the use of tasers and when we have seen that it has actually had those results. Um because I guess one thing I would because I really would like to understand you know the data around whether cuz I

guess one of my is there any data to show that um tasers could actually be overused. Um I mean that's that is a a concern that I have is that um when are they used when they don't you know maybe nothing needs to be used um other than you know talking or whatever. So, I I I would like to see some of the data re related to tasers, whatever we have locally or nationally. Um, and just what are some of the risks with tasers?

Because again, we've seen stories in the media about people who have also been harmed by tasers. So I would really like to understand the implications of expanding it because what we're doing is we are greatly increasing the number of tasers and also the cost. >> Thank you. >> So we can work with the sheriff for

followup on these items and um I know the as far as the data component as we prepare for the item being voted on at the next meeting. Thank you, >> Commissioner Burton. Then, Commissioner Valentine. >> Yes.

Thank you, Chair Alam. I just wanted to know, [clears throat] excuse me, um why are we increasing the number of tasers um that we have? >> Is it because we have more >> deputies? Yeah.

>> Growth. So, a portion of it is the sheriff's office, which is one division. The other portion of it is detention. So, you have uh Yep.

growth and more um incoming deputies and correctional officers. So you don't want to have somebody not have that on their um waist belt. >> So it's basically each um detention officer and sheriff's deputy has a one taser. Is that how it works?

>> Or have access or have access. >> One of the sheriff's office will have one. The detention. It will be kind of pulled based on the shift that they're on. >> And one last question, how long do they

last these taser? >> Five years use of life. >> Okay. So, it's kind of like with, you know, and excuse me if I go back to my education hat.

It's kind of like with the laptops and the Chromebooks, they have a shelf life of about four years and you have to replace. >> Absolutely. And that's what we have put together as a replacement program. >> Yep.

Any other questions? >> Uh, yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, thank you uh uh Exxon for your presentation.

I was wondering if you could tell us um since we've locked in uh over a 10-year fixed period and we've talked about the replacements and additional tasers. So, it would stand a reason to me that actually we're um saving the taxpayers some money with regards to this contract. Is that right? And if and if so, at least it stands reason to me, but if so, do you know what that exact number looks like? 2 million. that you'd be saving versus me coming

" But we can definitely get you the statistics that you want as far as safety of the the taser because we're looking at this holistically. It's not really the actual taser unit. It's public safety that we're trying to improve and help increase when you do engage with the citizens of this community. It's not just the actual taser.

We want a good taser engagement is not having to use it at all. But what we don't want you to have to do is pull out a firearm because that's way worse than a taser. >> Thank you. >> Thank you.

>> Questions? Okay, seeing none, then go back to you. >> Okay, the next item is 25532. And this particular item I'm recommending that we um move to another meeting because there were discussion questions on that one that we want to um have at a work session. So we'll move this item to our December work session so we can have a fuller discussion.

All right. The next item is 25547. 84. And this was as a part of our budget um annual budget process in the vehicles replacement. The next one is 25554. This is a budget ordinance amendment to recognize $369,949 of year 4 funds to support grant award to the Office of Emergency Services EMS Division from the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration,

and to authorize the county manager to sign and execute all contracts for authorized and approved uses associated with the grant program throughout the grant's period of performance. The next item is 25555, approval of budget ordinance amendment for the Department of Social Services to recognize Duke Energy Carolas LLC 2525 2025 Northtown Rate Settlement Funds of $22,000. The next one is 25556. Approval of budget ordinance amendment number 25 for the Department of Social Services to recognize emergency placement funding of $14,122. The next one is 25557. The board has requested to approve and

authorize a manager to execute two leases for the shops of Hope Valley with the county as landlord. The first lease renewal is in the um is with Licho LLC doing business as Beauty Smart for a 9-year term and total value of 1,41,9. The second agreement is an assignment. Commissioner Burton, >> I'm sorry.

>> Um, thanks. I just had a question. Like, when we rent out um space at the shops at Hope Valley, do we give a discount in the rental or do we rent it at market rate or how does that work? Okay, I will have one of our colleagues, Christy Raleigh, to speak about that. We have we do market rate assessments as we do these, but I'll have her discuss

further. Hey everybody, Christy Raleigh, um, senior real estate officer for the county. It's my first time up here. I found the button.

Um, we rent all of the units at Shops of Hope Valley at market rate. So currently that's $20 per square foot because we only bought the shopping center a few years ago. There are some some businesses in it with leases that transferred to us that are lower than that rate and as those come up for renewal, we'll get we're getting all of them up to the same market rate and we are doing the management of it. We don't have like a secondary person to help us with that.

>> We have a property management company trademark um helping us with the facility. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Great questions. The um second agreement is an assignment and assumption of lease with a three-year extension for MAGC wireless with a total

value of $74,182. The next item is 25558. It's approval of a budget ordinance amendment for the Department of Social Services to recognize 1 million1,500 in general fund fund balance to fully fund the lowincome homeowners tax relief program and to approve the interlocal agreement between Durham County and the city of Durham. >> Commission.

Yes. Um, thank you, Chair Lom. I just had a question about this item. I was wondering um how the funds were we able to utilize all the funds for this year or we still have funds left. Um, just curious if um property owners have been accessing it particularly since re-evaluation went up. So, we're still in process of um our

residents applying for the funds. So, we would give a board update around the February time frame. Um, once those dollars have been applied, uh, and it's been our practice in the past, as we shared with the board, if additional funds were needed, we would come back to determine if a higher level is required. Um the past year all the funds were not used and um but it was I'm looking at David and Kar I believe it was close to um a 700,000 level.

>> Hey David 80s assistant director budget last year I believe we got information from DSS that about $870,000 was spent last year. This year to date they're spending at a bit of a higher level. I think it was around 450,000 um to year to date. But it all depends on when people apply. And as uh manager Hager said, DSS can come and probably do

a presentation on the use of the program and some of the demographics and everything. >> You Commissioner Jacobs? >> Yeah. I just have more of a process question.

I'm curious why this is coming out of fund balance. I thought this was something that we approved in our budget. That's a great question, Chair Jacob or Commissioner Jacobs. Yes, this was a administrative issue where between DSS and our office, we missed simply the budgeting of it.

It the funds were always going to be there. This was just a line item issue where a couple years back there was a change to it and unfortunately it just got trickled forward and we didn't catch it until this ILA was being presented. So this is an administrative issue that we have fixed and we will fix in the future. But this is while it's fund balance in this specific item in the totality of of revenue and spending on the government, it'll be covered by the typical revenue sources. >> Thank you.

>> Okay. The next item is 2550 60 approval of capital project amendment and budget ordinance amendment decreasing the open space and farmland preservation capital project by 225,000 and transferring that funding to the general fund to support improvements at Little River Regional Park and Natural Area. Commissioner Jacobs. >> Well, I'll just give all my shout outs to [laughter] Open Space and Real Estate in one comment because there are a number of items on here.

Thanks to you all. Um, and I I first want to give a shout out because I really appreciate how your agenda action item refers to policies in the strategic plan, the goal area. So, thank you. Um, and for me, I totally

support this. Um, looking over the the joint plan that was approved in 2021 and the management plan, um, I'm noting that it's been four years and we're just implementing the first recommendation of the management plan. um which is you know paving the parking lot, repaving it and also the handicapped accessible trail. So I guess my question is one how do we feel like we're go [laughter] we're going to be able to implement the plan and the second thing is I feel like this park is really under the radar for Durm residents.

It's amazing. It's got bike trails and the fact that this is a handicapped accessible loop trail. So, how are how can we do a better job of making sure that folks in Durham County

know about this amazing resource? You know, there's a picnic shelter, there's a playground, um, and just, you know, hiking trails. How how can we do do that? And Celeste Burns will share all the great ways that we can elevate this further.

>> Good morning. Celeste Burns durm open space and trails to address your first question about why are we a little bit delayed on these activities. Partnering with Orange County um is a little tricky and they have just now kind of found their 50% of the funding for the for the pavement. um our staff work really closely with them to to track um improvements to track like the priorities documented in the in the plans. So, we're really glad that Orange County now has the resources. This is a beautiful spot and this goes back to 2004 when the land was preserved and

protected and open to the public with Orange County Parks and Rec staff being the lead in managing it. Um I really encourage everyone to get out there if you haven't. There is an accessible um paved trail that people use to be out in the woods um for mobility impaired folks. It's really really a nice place.

Um we do need to spend a little bit more effort to kind of get the word out about this park. Um for Durham County side, uh a lot of people city of Durham residents, county residents use this for the Malton biking trails. I think that community is really aware of it. Um hiking, there's trail runs every year.

Um, we'll try and work a little bit harder on our end for publicity for um, uh, events that Orange County sponsors to make sure that's blasted out on our end with public information. Does that help? >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. Just for the um millions of people watching our program today, um would you

mind just giving an idea like where it is cuz like seeing it in the agenda and my reviewing it the past couple days um it's really the first time I've heard of it. So, um could you kind of just give a general idea like where it is in our county, like how will we get to it, that kind of thing? >> Absolutely. There's an attachment in the agenda item that has a map.

So, if this is Durham County, I didn't bring my picture up here. Durham County, Orange County. It is up right on the Durham and Orange County border. H, you know, not quite to the Person um Castle County line, but it's the northern Durham.

It's a 20 minute drive from here. Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Did y'all see the map in there?

There's a little map and some pictures. Okay. >> And just to add, isn't it excess? Is it guest road that you would keep going out?

Guest road. What? >> Yes, it's guest road. So, if you keep going out guess, you'll go into Orange County. Um, just a couple of miles there'll be like a like a farm on your right and you'll see a nice stone sign

that says Little River Regional Park and you turn down this long paved driveway that's this beautiful entryway to the parking lot which will be paved hopefully by January or February of next year. >> Thank you. >> Thank you so much Celeste. The next item is 25561.

This is to authorize the county manager to execute an amendment to the contract between the city of Durham and Durham County for the city to accept municipal solid waste and yard waste from Durham County and amount not to exceed $200,000. Okay. The next item is 25562. 1 million.

The next item is 25564. This is approval of budget ordinance amendment to recognize additional funding from the North County Department of Adult Correction in the amount of $19,117 for transportation for the local re-entry council. The next one is 25570. 2 2 acre conservation easement donation from James Ting and Marian Powers at 5824 Garrett Road for the purpose of permanently protecting open space. The next one is 25573. This is approval of budget ordinance amendment recognizing $140,000 from the Department of Justice's

fiscal year 25's community policing development micro grants office of community oriented policing services to the department to the Durham County Sheriff's Office. The next item is 25574. This is approval of budget ordinance amendment appropriating $130,000 of general fund fund balance to open space and real estate to cover rent payments to 300 East Main Street LLC, a subsidiary of Laurel Street Residential for the subleas lease of the future child care center at 300 East Main Street Affordable Housing Project. Commissioner Britain.

>> Um, [clears throat] yes. Thank you so much. I was um had a question about is this is for the at the Renegade if I'm not mistaken. No, this is a different thing. >> Yes.

>> Okay. And the question I had was is are are we having challenges finding um providers to go into that space and how's it going and things of that nature? I will have our our expert, Mr. Perry Mans, to share about that process.

>> Yes. Uh good morning, commissioners. Perry Mans, deputy director, county engineering. The short answer is yes, we are having some challenges.

Um unfortunately, with the volatility in the market, we're um having some issues trying to determine legally and statutoily what the county can do in terms of subsidy uh for the operators. And so we initially issued an original um RFA, but we're going back and we're uh modifying that RFA, the solicitation. And so um we'll be coming back to you shortly with some information and an update on that. But um the challenge is,

you know, sort of playing in this space and providing child care. there have been some issues uh with what we can do and what we can't do and we want to flush that out to make sure we have all bases covered. So yes ma'am >> and I can talk about it offline but I just it was on the top of my mind and I just wanted to ask about it. So thank you so much.

>> Great Commissioner Jacobs. >> Perry don't move. [laughter] Um yeah, I had similar similar questions. Um because I'm trying to understand what we're really doing here.

Are we when we do have a tenant in that space, will the rent then come to us? Is so are we basically providing rent for an empty space at this point? >> That is correct, Commissioner Jacobs. Uh the way the um the master development agreement was crafted, the county

basically leases the space back from L Street. Uh and then the child care operator once they come on board, they will lease the space from the county. And so that's that's how this works. And so in order to make the development agreement work, Law Street had a performer and some numbers that were allocated.

And that's where we agreed to those amounts that you see in the agreement. And so that that's exactly what's happening. >> Okay. Well, I see Linda Chappelle sitting here from early years, but I'm assume that you all are helping us.

But I I do think I do hope we get something going again soon because it's been quite a while since the original RFP and um >> it would be good to get that space filled. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. The next item is 25575. Approve land acquisition of 32 acres at

3601 Southwest Dorm Drive as permanently protected open space within the New Hope Creek corridor. The next item is 25579 an agreement between the city county appearance commission interlocal amendment. This is an amendment to that agreement. The next one is 25583.

50. The next one is 25575. Approve land acquisition. Oops,

I am reading it twice and that's not what we want to do. All right, the next one is 25584. This is an approval of a budget ordinance amendment appropriating $271,680 of general fund fund balance to engineering to pay for a 911 consolidation hard expansion feasibility study and authorize accounting manager execute a contract with ADCOM Engineering LLC to provide 911 consolidation heart expansion a feasibility study. I'll start with Commissioner Brennan.

>> Yes, [clears throat] I'm really glad to see that on the consent agenda. I just wanted to know how long would it take to do the physibility study. >> Mr. Mans will share some framework.

>> Yes. Uh so, Commissioner, the answer to that question is 10 to 12 months. Unfortunately, it's a arduous process.

We have to uh first get the consultants up to speed with all the stakeholders, get them um all the data that they need to perform the assessment and evaluation. And so that's going to take some time. The manager and I were discussing earlier. We'll figure out um how best to have sort of check-ins with you all through this process. But again, this is uh going to be very complicated. the the two I guess the sheriff's office and the city PD have a lot of uh variety or or uh just differences in the way they operate and so this um study is going to take a comprehensive look at everything and so yes >> thank you so much >> quick followup before I move to this side on that and Perry so that's going to be 10 to 12 months for the whole uh study do you think it's going to take that like full 10 to 12 months for each portion like if we're looking at the 911 consolidation as one piece and the heart

expansion as a separate piece or do you know tentatively like the time for those individually? >> Uh commissioner the short answer is is it's 10 to 12 months for the entire study >> and so they can be looking at all of these things and do a lot of these tasks that are outlined in the proposal concurrently. Quite honestly, I think uh through our discussions and negotiations with them, they said about 10 months, but I figure it's going to take us another two to make informed decisions about which direction we go and all the presentations and review of the deliverables. And so, uh that's why we're just saying 10 to 12 comprehensively.

>> Okay. Thank you. Hey, Commissioner Valentine. >> Uh yes.

Thanks, uh Madam Chair. And so it's you said it's going to take about 12 months and so I'm hoping that we can have a a robust conversation amongst ourselves about you know what we en envision with regards to the heart and the 911 uh call center. And it is my

hope that uh we can coordinate some time with the sheriff and his office um in order to find out exactly what their equities are. And so I want to get to yes uh on this. I think uh everyone on the commission wants to get to yes, but it's also going to be important that we know exactly what our um our partners what their equities are and uh and we can move this forward. And so I hope to be a pivotal part in that.

And so I see the sheriff stepped out on me, but I'm I'm >> Oh. Oh, there he is. Okay, sheriff. So I'm looking forward to actually setting up a meeting with with you um to talk about this um and see what your equities are.

So we can sort of shape the uh the landscape far ahead of the feasibility study. And so I look forward to that. >> And I believe the sheriff's and his team, they're going to be part of that feasibility study as well. So that >> absolutely the sheriff's office um uh Durham Emergency Communications and the

uh PD have all been a part of this process throughout the entire process. They helped us with uh crafting the RFQ, the selection of the uh consultant, and so they're all listed as stakeholders, and they'll be the folks that we'll be getting the data and information from. >> Yeah. And I agree with you, Commissioner Valentina.

Maybe like when So, this is going to start, we approve this, and they'll start like this month, next month or >> Yes, ma'am. They'll start right away as soon as we get the contract executed. >> Okay. Yes, ma'am.

Right. And then maybe like in January, February, we could have like a presentation like a firststep presentation and kind of like work through that. >> Yeah, that's one of the conversations Perry and I have had is is how do we make sure the board is up to speed >> on how we're headed is the board as well as council because it does impact um both governing bodies. We've heard everyone loud and clear. we need to move very fast, but we also want to make sure we have um very thoughtful movements so

that we can um design an approach that works best for the community for decades to come. >> Thank you. And I know Commissioner Jacobs has your hand up and I'm assuming I know you guys covered it, but just uh to double check that the study that the city had done when they did their heart expansion and their heart, they're going to be willing to provide that all to this organ this group that's going to be doing this. >> Absolutely.

There will be lessons learned and information that you know they studied theirs for about 18 months. So we will have the benefit of that assessment and analysis as it relates to heart while overlaying this other question because this is a separate question. There's two parts to this question. How should the emergency communication structure look?

And then what does Hartlet look like >> if expanded? >> Commissioner Jacobs. >> Yes. I have a number of questions and I just I just for full disclosure I had

contacted the chair and the vice chair just asking that when we have plans or studies on our agenda to have them be discussion items because I think it's really important like the BRT agenda item. I think it's really important that when we're doing a study or a plan that we have enough time for discussion and also for the public for the benefit of the public and the community and not just to have it on a consent agenda. Um but so I have a number of questions. One is we first asked the board we first directed staff to start looking at this issue back during the budget work session. So that's been about [clears throat] 6 months and I know the first step was to really uh look at the 911 data that we had um and to see what are the current number of 911 calls going to each 911

center and also any information available about the types of calls. And I'm just wondering what is has that review what's the outcome of that assessment and maybe that's for Dwayne. I don't know that was something that we had asked Commissioner Jacobs. Um that is something that will be encompassed in this study.

It did not move as along at the pace that we originally thought it could. So we can circle back on what that answer is to that question. >> Yeah, cuz I believe it was that uh county city staff were going to sit down with Durham Police Department, sheriff's office and come up with a staff working group to figure out what is the next steps and I'm this is what led out of that was that there needs to be a feasibility study. >> Okay, because I thought some of that data was already publicly available. Um,

okay. Um, so I guess I'd also like to understand the contractor who is been hired for this is an engineering firm, but I I guess one of my concerns is because I've been part of the NAO National Association of County Officials um part of best practices related to behavioral health crisis response. And back in February, um, I was at a national roundt and the Chu Charitable Trust has done extensive research on best practices related to 911 centers. And I really want to make sure that that we are looking also at what is the national best practices. And I think so one of my concerns is is that this is not just an engineering issue.

Um, this is about what is the best practice in terms of how we provide care to people in our community and also about saving cost to county governments because the number one recommendation that came out of the Pew Charitable Trust is that 911 calls should be diverted for behavioral health needs. And I just I read through the RFP and the respon you know the RFP from this company and I didn't see anything related to looking at the national data and national best practices. So it's a concern for me and this is for me we it's not just an engineering issue about what's feasible and practical. It's also about what is the best practice for providing a very important care for people in our community. So, do we have a that I don't know if the contractor is

probably not here, but that's just one of my concerns. >> Yeah, that's a very valid concern, Commissioner, and I assure you that you're going to look forward to hearing from the consultant that we selected. Um this consultant is a national uh consultant that has done 911 consolidation all over the country. Um we had nine responses to the solicitation.

We interviewed four uh we selected the top firm and quite honestly they were selected based on their experiences with best practices and sort of um figuring out whether consolidations are feasible and practical. Uh the bottom line is we're going to give you all of the information you need to make an informed decision as to whether or not we want to move forward with both 911 consolidation as well as integration of heart throughout the county. Um, as I mentioned earlier, and not to talk too much, um, just the differences in how the the city

PD and the sheriff's office operate, uh, is what's going to really have us take a hard long look at this. They have to look at everything from technology. Um, both, uh, departments use a different, um, computer AED dispatch system. It's the same vendor, but just different versions.

So, they have to look at that. There's um HR benefits and compensation. There's training. There's governance.

There's all of these things. There's facility assessments. There's all of these things that we have to evaluate as part of this study. And so, um again, we will certainly get the consultants before you and let you express your concerns.

But I'm confident that we've selected a team that knows what the best practice is throughout the industry based on their experience, and you'll get your questions answered. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. I I also just want to add I I also participated in an AO um visit based on again best practices on local behavioral crisis response to Henrio

County, Virginia and I toured their 911 center and I I again I just want to and that is a consolidated center with both the uh office of the sheriff police department the entire county. Um, and I I just again want to make sure that we are looking at what is being done uh in in other counties. Um, so when they come, you can you can ask them if they could please come with, you know, information about that. Um, and then my last um is question and point is just I see these studies as being very separate and different also. um you know one is about consolidation of I1 the second is about hard expansion they don't necessarily have to happen at the same time or to be dependent on each other um and so I want to make sure we're also going to be looking at that

and I am concerned about the timeline because it means that we are not going to be able to move forward in this upcoming budget on taking action on this and again this has been a long-standing issue. So it is a concern and I'm just wondering if there's any way for at least the heart expansion issue to be done more quickly and I I just I'm kind of confused about why they're being wrapped up together and again I kind of see them also as being separate. So >> that's one of my questions. >> That's a great question. And I will say for the budget process, we can definitely um put a placeholder um in the budget to support potential recommendations and that's not uncommon when developing priority areas um as you're developing a budget. So as we work through the process, we can figure

out should we do that approach or plan the budget knowing this is coming in the subsequent year so that we are judicious how we manage it. I will say that this coming budget year will be quite complex and so there will be lots of spaces in which we may have to put periods or question marks as we work through the timing of how we fund things. Okay. My last point is for when the uh consultant comes just what their experience is with actually also having costs around the cost savings when you implement an integrated crisis response system.

Um and we can also look at the existing heart data for that. But there's also national data on that because that should be part of when we look at the cost. Um that should be part of it as well. >> Yes, ma'am. That's a great point and

that's exactly what they're going to do. Uh the bottom line is what is it going to cost us? That's that's the elephant in the room. >> To do it or not to do it.

>> No. To Yeah. [laughter] Both. Both.

So they they'll lay out the pros and cons, the advantages, disadvantages, and allow us to make a decision as to which direction we go. >> Thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Thank you.

And just want to add last comment because Commissioner Jacobs reminded me of something I think around the budget piece. Yeah. if we could and I don't know I know to this last point that you just mentioned it's like yeah if there's going to be savings or cost because we know from national models that it is possible to merge that there have been other jurisdictions that have done a merger of their 911 and consolidated it so I don't think the issue is of can it be done it's more so the cost and then how it's done for Durham because we are different um do you think and this is more so a question to my colleagues here on the dis like since we have these constraints cuz I'm also thinking of every time we have one

of these items on our agenda that go towards funding for the backup centers and the new merged emergency center. I know I always call manager Hager. I'm like, if we're funding this and this separately, how is this going to be impacted when we hopefully eventually reach the point of a merged uh system if we're funding for separate systems right now? So, if we as a board like kind of figure out like is this something I know we don't have all the data of what it's going to look like yet, but if this is something that we're planning on moving forward with that we have conversations about when these items come to us about the the new emergency center.

How do we discuss funding these dual systems? continuing to put more money into dual systems when we are moving towards a path of if that makes sense. Yeah. Commissioner Burton. >> Yeah. I think for me, you know, being a newer commissioner, I don't have enough information about what that looks like.

Um what the I just I just don't have enough information. I think for me, I would like to learn more about the pros and the cons of a dual system. I would like to learn more about other jurisdictions that do this dual system. For me, I need to just do I need to have some more information about what this is, why we're doing it, what it looks like, because I have no really clear idea of what it is.

So, I can just only speak for myself. So, getting the information, visiting other places that do this. Um, I think that's going to be important for me to know what I'm voting for, what I'm funding. >> Yeah. I mean, when maybe we could also schedule like before obviously they're going to be coming in if we could do tours of with the city and the sheriff's office of the 911 operating centers as a board as well. Commissioner,

>> I'm having a little trouble understanding the the impetus of the question like we have to fund >> until something changes, right? I mean like >> well so the funding that we're putting forward right now is for that new construction >> and so my mind is kind of thinking okay if our goal is to reach a merged should our plans for this new construction be with the mindset that it's going to be merged instead of building out this new facility with two separate centers. >> Okay. Okay.

I I understand that. And then also a secondary question because I don't know if this I don't know what other counties and cities that look like ours in the country that have merged and if they've have like one entity has had a heart type program and one didn't. Do we know yet? Maybe this is something we can have come up in the discussion. Can HART be expanded without a 911 call

center merger? >> Yeah, absolutely. Um I I think that this process will allow us to to see what's most effective because it will take many years for whichever model we decide to move forward with to actually construct it. Okay.

So that's one one piece. So the question is what does it look like while we're in transition? So that's part of it as well. Those are the kinds of um operational conversations that we'll talk with in the um consultant based on their experience because although we're talking about heart, I know there are many other initiatives throughout the country that have a similar practice and so this would not be unusual for them. So um the cost of the communication center I believe is close to 40 million if my the

>> commissioner excuse me manager you're talking about the cost within the the uh EOC. >> Yes. >> Yeah. That was uh that eclipse four.

>> Okay. >> But I will remind everyone that um we're we're calling them two separate backups but they're not. They're basically spaces that are adjacent to one another that just have two different operations. And so we'll we'll certainly talk more about that as we go through the evaluation, but that's part of the evaluation as well is the consultant is going to evaluate what makes sense um from a facility perspective in reference to the EOC.

Unfortunately, we cannot pause the design of the emergency operations center pending this study. We're at 50% CDs. We're going through regulatory approvals and things like that. And so it's kind of like, you know, I thought about this a lot. We're basically going to have to thread the needle as to what makes sense to take advantage of cost savings contingent upon which direction we go.

So >> yeah, and I completely understand and I'm not saying like pause the emergency operating center. I'm just thinking in my mind I'm like, okay, we all have as a board have shown our interest in having heart expanded into the county. So if that's our goal, even if it's like 5 years down the road, if we're doing this new construction now of just that cost-saving measure, if we look back at okay, in 5 years we have hard expanded, we're merged, all the things are done, and we look back at it, we're like, we spent so much more money functioning as if we weren't going to be reaching that goal that we could have saved, you know, if we were building out if we just said like, okay, this is our goal for 5 years down the road to have this merge center. Let's have the plan and the construction.

But it's helpful in other >> great point. But I look at it differently. I look at it as the space is going to be used. >> Uh it may be used differently, but the space is going to be used. And so right now, you know, we're programming based on numbers for the sheriff's uh backup as well as city PD, but at the end of the day, if a merger occurs, uh the

space will be utilized effectively. So So think of it like that. >> Thank you, Perry. Appreciate it.

All right. Okay. The next item is 25591. This is an approval of budget ordinant amendment for the Department of Social Services to recognize additional funding to Durham County's fiscal year 2526 home and community care block grant funding plan in the amount of $42,254 to improve planning and coordination of inhome and community-based services for older adults.

Okay, and that concludes our consent items. >> Thank you so much, manager Hager. That moves us to our discussion items. The first one being um we will need to suspend the rules to authorize my signature on the Great Trails State Grant Program agreement with NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources to accept 500,000. So, I'll

entertain a motion to suspend the rules. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Okay.

Moved by Commissioner Burton, seconded by uh Commissioner Vontine. We don't need any presentation for this one, right? Okay. Just making sure that um [clears throat] all in favor say I.

>> I. Any opposed? >> Okay. So, the rules have been suspended.

Now, I'll move I'll entertain a motion to approve my signature for >> so moved. Second. >> Moved by Commissioner Valentine, second by Vice Chair Dr. Lee.

All in favor say I. I. >> I. Any opposed?

Okay, that's approved. Thank you. I will now Oh, we have another one. Uh, the rules are still suspended, right?

So, I don't do >> still. Yeah. >> So, now uh I'll entertain. Just I'll entertain a motion for the board to approve budget ordinance amendment number 26 BCC029 and capital project

amendment number 26 CPA 009 and tip agreement with the North Carolina Department of Transportation for acquisition of the Durham to Roxboro rail corridor. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Moved by Commissioner Burns.

Second by Commissioner Valentine. All in favor say I. >> I. Okay.

>> Any opposed? Okay, that is approved. Is there any more switches? >> Are we do we have time for pres a presentation?

>> Presentation, but >> Okay. And I think also comments from the board. Okay. >> I just wanted to get the Yes.

Go ahead. >> All right. Uh good morning, commissioners. Um Ellen Beckman, transportation director for Durham County. I'm here with Brooke Roer, transportation planner for Durham County and Hart Evans, the NC DOT statewide planning and programming manager. Um so you know as noted there are two um agenda items uh with um several actions

um authorizing the chair to sign the great trail state program grant agreement with NC Department of Natural Cultural Resources to accept $500,000. Um approval of the budget ordinance amendment and capital project amendment to add funding and move it into the appropriate account. and uh approval of the tip agreement with NC DOT um with a uh for 1,151,445 with a net county expenditure of 223,000 and recognizing state grants of 92845. So, um, you know, due to the scheduled closing by NC DOT on November 19th, um, NC DOT's asked the county to pay the TIP agreement about a week ahead of time. Um, the the state, um, Department of Natural and Cultural Resources has also asked the county to provide the executed grant agreement back with um, at least a

week ahead of time. So I'm considering that in the board's next meeting on November 10th. We are asking for a suspension of the rules today. Uh so appreciate that.

[laughter] Um so just this is from the October meeting um where we gave a full presentation on the Durham to Roxboro rail trail plan and as noted in that presentation this was the next step um approval of the funding for acquisition. Um, you know, this has been a multi- agency and multi-year effort to fund and acquire this corridor. Uh, as noted, 80% of the cost is being provided by NC DOT, uh, through funding that's been approved by the state board of transportation, the Triangle West Transportation Planning Organization, and the Cartar Rural Planning Organization. Uh, 20% is then uh provided by the three local governments, Person County, City of Durham, and Durham County. Uh the East Coast Greenway Alliance uh applied for and was awarded $1

million from the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources Department for complete the Trail State Parks grant. Um there's a letter included in the agenda materials that describes that they intend to fulfill the grant requirements and then share this grant uh proportionately with the three local governments. So we would receive 428,445 through that awarded grant. And then um our state parks grant was for $500,000.

Um this application had been endorsed by the board in November of 2024 when we applied. And so we were fortunate to receive those two grants. 7% of the total project uh acquisition cost. Um this is, you know, a lot less than what had been planned for in Durham County. CIP um had been in the CIP for about two and a half million dollars for many years. So through, you

know, working with our neighboring jurisdictions, um NC DOT, um our our transportation planning organizations, you know, we've been able to greatly reduce this planned expenditure for the county. Um so that's that's the, you know, mechanics of what's being asked for today. Um we did you know provide a full presentation last month uh about the plan uh document and the study. Um since then uh we've worked with the consultant and our partners to finalize the plan report.

Um it's now posted on the study website uh that was just posted. So uh we'll be asking for approval of that uh report at a future meeting. Um there are a few points that were raised today that I want to emphasize. Um, you know, Durham city and county have included this project in our adopted greenways and transportation open space plan since the mid80s. Uh, so it's a long-standing county priority affirmed by multiple boards of

commissioners over about four decades. Um, there have been previous attempts to purchase this corridor that had not been successful. Um so over but over the past few couple years the conservation fund has worked with NC DOT and Northfor Southern to facilitate the transaction. Um so it's an opportunity right now to secure the corridor for future transportation purposes.

And I I want to emphasize that securing a 26mi continuous corridor is a very unique opportunity um from a willing property owner and um it eliminates a lot of work that is often involved in creating um new corridors or corridors along roadways. Uh as part of the acquisition uh the conservation fund on behalf of NC DOT has done a lot of the due diligence required. Um, so that's included a full title opinion that included research back to the handwritten deeds from the railroad in the 1890s. Um, as well as a

survey. Uh, they also uh did a phase one and phase 2 environmental site assessment that looked for hazards or contaminants on the property as well as a national environmental policy act categorical exclusion to investigate any environmental concerns. And these documents, you know, were prepared by environmental scientists and have concluded that the property is compatible with the future use as a greenway trail. Um, you know, our our plan includes a section on safety considerations as this had been brought up as a community concern.

Um, both national and some local studies that have been done in Durham on the American Tobacco Trail have concluded that trails, you know, do not create or induce crime. uh crime activities generally reflect neighborhood crime patterns and are not uh induced by the presence of a trail. Um [clears throat] there are benefits to trails creating natural surveillance, community ownership and activation of otherwise

neglected space. So, and as um as we described in this presentation in October, um the study included extensive public engagement through surveys, workshops, focus groups, pop-up events, and other meetings. So, county staff, um the county manager, several of the county commissioners have attended multiple meetings throughout the county and in dur northern Durham County. Um, you know, I've heard NC DOT uh describe the amount of public engagement that we've done for this plan as far and above what they typically see on a project of this at this stage of development.

Uh, we did receive nearly 3,000 responses from our first survey. Uh, 66% of those responses were from Durham County zip codes. And um, our second survey had 450 responses. uh both of them showed that about 70 to 80% positive responses overall and also when specifically looking at Durham County zip codes. So

we we do acknowledge that there are some strongly opposed residents in specific areas. Uh the overall sentiment of the plan was strongly in favor of the project. Um our survey results are posted on our website including all the raw data um for full transparency. And then um lastly, I just as we mentioned in October, there is no eminent domain associated with this acquisition.

NC DOT will be purchasing fee simple ownership from Norfolk Southern. Uh the railroad is not in an easement and the trail would not be in an easement. Um there has been a lot of inaccurate information shared uh by the the law firms that have kind of unsolicited or sent out solicitations for for clients. um and through you know just local residents that the trail would be in an easement or on people's private property.

Uh but that is that is not the case with this railroad. It is uh fee simple ownership by Norfolk Southern. So since um NC DOT is going to

be the owner, not the county. Um they've coordinated this research a lot. Um I I will provide HART an opportunity to address any issues about ownership. So with that um that's a summary of the action today.

appreciate uh any questions. >> Thank you. Yeah, I wanted to preemptively approve it because I knew uh Commissioner Valentine had to slip out and he wanted to express his support as well. Are there any questions, Commissioner Burton?

Oh, yes. Thank you so much. Yeah, I'm in support of this. What I'm realizing in doing this work, um there can be two things true at the same time, right? We have these concerns about what the residents brought up, privacy, um, safety, encroachment on impro on property, and this is something that the majority of our residents want for the well-being for our community, right? So, I just want to continue to as this that

we're thinking about those things and those concerns and, you know, I know we'll continue to do the due diligence to make sure those concerns are addressed, right? Um because they're real to them, right? And I can see what they're saying. But I also realize many of our residents want this rail trail and they've been wanting it for a very very long time.

So I'm just really glad that um we're seeing some movement on it. So thank you so much for all your hard work listening to people doing the um listening sessions, things like that. You too y'all y'all did an amazing job. So thank you.

>> Um uh thank you for this. I I really appreciate how the cost is going down for Durham County here. 7%. And it's made up of different levels of grants from state and other places. Um

the the uh am I correct? It's like state type funding. It's state DOT kind of funding. I don't want to know where it's coming from.

>> [clears throat] >> um like the other types of I know you went through it and I just want to just confirm because I have something to say about that like these grants and things. >> Yeah. So, um 80% of the funding is provided through NC DOT. >> Okay.

>> And that is um federal funds. >> Okay. >> That are um approved through the typical transportation processes by the state board of transportation and our local planning organizations. >> That's what I needed.

And so, um, if we were to not do this, okay, if we were to not do this, those funds and those grants would go elsewhere for something similar. Correct. Or, you know, some project that NC DOT would have to allocate those funds for. Correct.

>> Yes. >> Okay. So, we all pay federal taxes, right? we all pay and regardless of if we do this program or not, those funds will be spent somewhere else.

" I get that, but it's still your tax money, but it'll be spent on somebody else's project, somebody else's place, somewhere else. One thing's not going to change is we're not going to stop paying federal taxes. At least not in my tax bracket. You know, maybe some higher may get to not pay taxes. But we here in Durham, we're going to be paying federal taxes. And if we don't take advantage of using this money to make our county better,

somebody else is going to take our tax money and use it to make their communities better. So, I just wanted to point that out because I hear that whole, you know, using our tax money. I don't want my tax money. Well, you're not once you pay taxes, you don't get to choose where it goes to, but you get to, you know, you get to use it in your community.

It's it could come back to you when you use it within your your um your county or um your community. So, um, I just wanted to point that out because that's a very important thing we need to understand when we argue about how taxes are being used or how we want to do that because it's going to get used. It's going to get used. You know, the the federal government's job is to spend money, right? Is to spend money and they have to collect money through taxes to spend it, right? And so they're going to

spend it and they'll spend your tax money somewhere if you don't take advantage of getting the tax money into your community. So I support this program. I support us using our tax money to make our community better and that's why and that's what I wanted to ask. So thank you so much.

>> Thank you Commissioner Jacobs. >> Um thank you. I would uh before I make my comments, I would love to hear from our NC DOT rep because it is very special to have somebody here from NC DOT and this partnership that we're having with so many different entities, but the fact is that this corridor will be owned by NC DOT. So, I would love to hear any comments that you would like to share.

>> Yeah, for sure. Um NC DOT is fully supportive of this project. Um it is a very transformative project that has taken decades to to surface and kind of

come to this place where we are able to acquire something. 1 mile corridor that is completely preserved and on fe simple. 1 mile corridor be sold out into different uh into different parcels. Um, so making sure that we keep this continuous and use it for not only uh to keep it for current and future transportation uses.

Um, in terms of this corridor, you know, we're not just looking at the next uh 10 to 50 years, but in the next 200 years when we don't even know what kinds of modes of transportation we'll have. We'll have this uh continuous 26 mile corridor that we can utilize for other transportation things as the community needs uh shift and change. Um so you know just being able to own this as a state agency uh for whatever transportation use in the future is also a big deal. Um because you know it could be a trail for the next hundred years but then 100 years from then it might need to be reverted to a rail corridor

or some other kind of light rail and that option is there as well. So, um, from a department standpoint, we are fully supportive of this and it has taken lots of stakeholders and lots of meetings and engagement. 7% of this over $13 million project for the acquisition. >> Thank you.

So I just want to first of all say to our board that this is a transformative decision that we have just made and I just I really want to celebrate that. I you know I've been sitting here for 13 years and this will be one of I feel one of the most important decisions that I will have made in my tenure as a county commissioner. Um, I know we're going to have another transformative deficit

coming up in our agenda as well. And this is truly about the future of Durham. [snorts] As we just heard from our NC DOT rep, um, this is not just about today or our children, our grandchildren. It's it's an investment in the future of Durham and our region and our state.

And so I am so grateful to our staff. I know Doug Carter will probably be glad to hear uh [laughter] our financial consultant how our staff is so amazing at going out and getting grant money and building the partnerships and the coalitions to bring money into Durham County. This is a great deal for Durham taxpayers. And thank you to our vice chair for lifting that up. Um to be able to get control of this entire

corridor for this investment is is an amazing return on investment for our community. Um and since I've been a county commissioner, this has been a light align item in our CIP in our budget every year for it was Timber Lake Rail Trail. So, it has been an item in our budget every single year. Um, and I I think I I appreciate all the input from our community both for and against and I know that we will take to Commissioner Burton's um point, we will take the concerns very seriously when we uh design actually design the trail. But it is important to look at the data and what we know even around the American Tobacco Trail that from a study that was done that even when the American Tobacco

Trail passes through uh parts of our city like the Fagetville Street um area where there is a higher um percentage of crime. What's amazing is that the half a mile on either side of the trail has a lower crime rate. It has a lower crime rate. So trails actually reduce crime.

They build community. They help us have a healthier community. And again, I'm really It may take us a long time to build this, but we have protected this corridor. There could be a gas pipeline coming through here. There could be uh electrical transformers which almost happened uh along the American Tobacco Trail. So there could be other things that would be clearcutting this entire trail and instead this is going to really protect

it for the benefit of the public. So thank you. Um and this is a great moment for our community. Thank you, Commissioner Jacobs.

And yeah, um if you couldn't tell from my eagerness to vote on it, but I'm very excited that we're moving forward and just want to echo what everyone has said. Thank you so much for making such a huge project. Everyone's I think here's that total dollar amount of this project. I even seen it like in articles and on social media and Reddit and stuff, but I think it's really important for us as commissioners to make sure we go out and tell folks like from the local side, it's only $223,000.

And that's something you really can't pass up for a project of this magnitude. So, thank you so much to Ellen and her team uh for finding all of that funding resources uh to make it possible. I think I know as Wendy said and Commissioner Burton that we're going to keep the folks who have shared their um concerns about the project keep it in

mind and make sure that we're going to keep reaching out and doing outreach to them throughout the construction prog process because how long is this going to take? It's not going to be done tomorrow. It's going to be like yeah like 20 yeah 20 years like it's going to be a while. Um so there's going to be lots of further opportunity for engagement.

Um, and I think also for them to preemptively if there are issues, which hopefully there won't be, to reach out to staff so that we can make sure that those things are addressed. But thank you. Is it possible just to um the one comment somebody made about being able to reach outside? Do we have or I don't know if it's done already or it will be at some point obviously like flags to just mark for folks like this is where the boundary is to their property line like little orange flags.

>> So I know a full survey was done. Okay. >> Um it is generally a 100 ft wide corridor with the railroad you know roughly in the center of that.

>> Um I don't know there may be markers out. There are some markers out currently, but they're kind of very discreet. Um I I don't think with NCGO taking ownership that that would be a priority for us to go out and actually mark. Yeah.

>> And you know, I guess it's trying to blend everything back together until we are ready to do something with it actually. >> Yeah. " >> Yeah. Yeah, and I think you know there are over 400 adjacent property owners along this 26 milei corridor, not thousands um but 4 450 about um so you know we will have to coordinate individually with all 450 of those property owners before yeah clearing and construction starts. So you know that's really step one of the involvement process with those property owners. Everything that has been done up until now uh with the coordination from those property owners has go is far beyond and

above what any other uh fee simple real estate transaction would have done to engage these property owners. So >> great thank you all so much again. >> Thank you. Okay, we now will move to ordinance zoning map change Z250025 RTP Foundation.

>> You're not coming up, Scott. [laughter] Good morning. [clears throat] Uh my name is Robin Schultz. I am a principal planner and arborist within the Durham City County Planning and Development Department.

Um got all those words in there. 0 plan. Um this is both a text amendment

and a zoning map change. Uh we are uh proposing a um a new district called UC3 which fits within our existing university and campus districts. Uh the way that this functions is that it has a a a transitional use area is what it's called um which surrounds the property um and maintains uh many of our zoning regulations. Um and then there's also an internal campus uh which provides more flexibility for the applicant.

Um, however, they do have to provide what's known uh as a campus map. Um, and so you all need to uh review that campus map and make sure that it's uh to your liking. Um, and Travis is here uh from the RTP Foundation to tell you more about their proposal. Um, but that's it in a nutshell.

Erin, do you want to add anything? >> Sure. I'll just add a uh little bit that [clears throat] accompanying this text amendment is a zoning map change to reszone the entirety of Research

Triangle Park ex uh in Durham County except for one parcel that is the Durham County Wildlife Club. Um that will go the same night as the text amendment. So you'll have the text amendment first to approve and then approve the zoning after that. And with that, I'll turn it over to Travis Kraton, who is the, uh, vice president for planning for the Research Triangle Foundation.

>> Thank you, uh, Robin and Aaron. Good morning, Chair Alam and Commissioners. Uh, it's good to be back before you this morning. Um, I'm also joined in the audience, as you saw, by Scott Levitan, our president and CEO.

So, as we walk through this, if you have any additional questions, he'll also be happy to come up uh, and chime in as we walk through this. Um we've been uh here a couple of times over the years as we work through this process uh to provide updates and receive your input. Uh so what I'll do today is just give a highle summary of the work we've done to date uh the intent of this proposal and then I'll talk a little bit um to some of the specifics in both the text amendment and the uh zoning map change and then we're happy to answer any questions or discussion with you all. Uh I always

like to start our presentations. I know you all on this board, excuse me, know [clears throat] us well. Uh but just a reminder, uh we are the Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina. We act as the steward and administrator of Research Triangle Park.

Um our mission is tied to uh the connection between our universities, that connection between the universities and industry and creating that positive economic benefit for the residents of Durham County, Wake County, and North Carolina um at large. So we are focused on that bigger economic picture uh and the economic benefit that we can bring um to our state. We also have a number of educational partners you see here both um our founding universities that sit on our board and our additional university partners who we work with in a variety of capacities. Uh so I always like to pull up just a map of the park just to orient everybody.

Um so as a reminder the majority of the park is in southern Durham County. Uh the park as a whole is about 7,000 acres. That includes um our additional about 27% that's in Wake County. Uh throughout the park today, we

have about 385 companies that employ about 55,000 people. We have a variety of industries uh present throughout the park. So everyone's doing some type of research and development. But as you can see here, uh we have a full range of R&D industries that are present in RTP today.

You all also know very well our hub RTP project thanks to our public private partnership with Durham County that made this project possible. Uh I just bring it up to highlight a couple of things. Uh I know uh all of the commissioners have been out to visit us at hub. Uh but as a reminder this project has been in the works for a long time now, well over a decade to get it to construction to create really the very first mixeduse center uh in RTP.

0 and thinking about different types of development parkwide. So um hub will become our first mix center, our downtown, our gathering point. It'll introduce that office space, that residential, that retail to provide those amenities that we see that are so

in demand in office parks, research parks, and innovation districts nationally. 0 process. Um that was in response to two things that were happening. One was the final vertical construction on this project that dates back to early 2010s when the first idea and vision for this project came about and also the return to office uh following the pandemic.

Our companies were beginning to navigate that. And so through those two key inputs, we identified it a need for a uh process, a conversation, an engagement with our companies to fully understand what's happening uh in innovation districts and business parks nationally and globally and what we might need to do from a planning perspective to position RTP to develop in ways that respond to these new and modern trends that we've been observing. So we've been working on it for going on four years now and that results in the proposal that we are here to discuss today. So

with that in mind, back in early 2022, we kicked off this process saying we wanted this to be a 50-year vision for the park. So the park is now 65 years old. Uh a lot has happened in 65 years and certainly from an economic perspective, the park has been a success, but we wanted to have this process much like our forefathers did to think about what we need to do uh for the next 50 years of park development. How has the world changed?

How do we think the world might change? and how can we create a research and development center that creates the physical environment where that innovation can thrive. So, we've had that long uh vision and planning horizon on our minds. And we've worked very collaboratively with uh our partners throughout this that includes our companies in the park as well as as I mentioned, we've been here a couple of times to hear from you all. We've worked very closely with county staff and city planning staff um on this proposal as well as our colleagues in Wake County on their portion of the park to shape this vision to what it is today. So through this process as we began many years ago we began to synthesize the feedback that we were getting and we set this uh these couple of principles here

as a kind of our guiding principles for the goals of this process. So at the end of this when we begin to see redevelopment when we begin to see the park change over time we really want to make sure we're achieving these goals here. So, as we've developed the more specifics of the proposal, we've always gone back to these uh key guiding principles to make sure that we are still serving as an economic center for growth for our region and our state. We're still retaining talent that's coming out of our area universities.

One of the reasons the park was created back in the 1950s and 1960s. That we are still rooting everything we are doing in research and development. That that is our core economic enterprise and that we're meeting the needs of our R&D companies. um that we're also positioning the park to remain competitive among our peers, which includes both other business parks, but also innovation districts that increasingly look much more urban and have a greater set of amenities that support those companies, jobs, and increasingly residents in those innovation districts. That's a key part of this proposal. Um and lastly, very early on, we really heard a lot of

feedback from our companies and others about the need for those amenities close to office spaces. And so while Hub introduces the first of those real kind of amenity centers, downtowns, vibrant activity areas in the park, it's not walkable for much of our park. And so we've had this idea from the very beginning of how can we unlock the opportunity to transform other locations in RTP into more of those vibrant mixeduse centers that can deliver what we're seeing in demand from a talent perspective, from a business perspective, and just generally from an office market perspective as well. 0 proposal.

So why are we doing this? I've given you a little bit of insight into this just through my my couple of slides here, but I just want to pull out two quick data points to highlight and really underscore why this is important and why this is a moment in time that we've decided to undertake this project uh as the manager and steward of the park. Um this is a slide from some research completed last year by an economist at Southern Methodist University. uh one of the very first uh kind of comprehensive

look at office parks, innovation districts nationally. And through his research uh he identified sort of this trend in theory about why we have innovation districts and business parks in the first place. It has to benefit from that clustering that close proximity of industry. And from a theoretical perspective, you can sort of trace it back to um industrial districts in the 1800s.

So you think about our our warehouse district here in downtown Durham or the warehouse district in Raleigh. Those are sort of the the early clustering that we saw from an economic perspective. And you fast forward to sort of post-war America, you began to see this focus on research, the significant investment from the federal government at that time in research. And so the response at the time was to create suburban innovation parks.

And this is really what Research Triangle Park is. It was one of the first of its kind, second in the country and certainly still the largest in the country. uh that really was responding to par planning paradigms at that time that called for more of that bucolic nature, the sort of desire for return to nature, what was considered uh that high quality of life and suburbanization of the country. And so that's what we've really created in RTP. And if you fast

forward a couple of decades, really since the early 2000s and every decade since, we've seen much more of a return to urban form uh and much more urban environments for office parks and innovation districts uh in our country and in some cases globally. So this first was sort of more of a kind of urban walkable model. You still sort of had that that uh standard kind of office day. But over the past couple of decades, we've seen introduction of additional uses.

So that day extends into the evening and even into the night. So now we have, you know, 18 or even 24-hour innovation districts where people not just come to work, but they live there. They have other reasons to be there. They visit.

There's retail activity. All of these sorts of things. And so our challenge has been how do we take the existing nature of Research Triangle Park and think about our legacy but also adapt to this changing environment where when we go to conferences and engage with our peers, we're increasingly engaging with much more urban peers that offer a amenity set that is highly in demand. Again, from both a talent um and a business perspective. One other data point I'll just highlight here. This is from some research the National Landing Business Improvement

District just outside of Washington DC and home to Amazon HQ2 did a couple of years ago. They looked at some of the the kind of big names in innovation districts uh around the country and they just looked at the uses that are within those districts. So what you see here is you know in some cases between a fourth to half uh of these of these innovation districts are residential uses. So there's an increasing emphasis on that residential.

uh you still see that significant office component and in some cases again higher uh proportions of retail hotel uses other uses that can support that innovation district. If RTP were on this list, it would be pretty much that exclusively dark blue color even though with hub we have that beginning to dip our toes into retail and mixeduse development. But square footage wise, it's still a tiny drop in the grand scheme of RTP. 0 know of being able to align us with these different development patterns and these mix of uses that are supporting innovation districts today. Um, also you all know this, so I'll just

spend one second on it, but we're a growing region. We've been growing. I know much of the issues that come before you uh deal with that growth and how we accommodate it in Durham County and our region at large. Um, one goal we had from the very beginning of this process is to think about how RTP can help contribute to some solutions for our regional growth challenges.

So RTP is 7,000 acres. It's relatively lightly developed because of our existing land use regulations and covenant restrictions. And so one question we've asked ourselves is how can we put the land resource of RTP given its location in the region as the geographic center to think about addressing some of these growth challenges. And we've also tried to integrate that into the land use proposal that is before you today. So at the heart of our proposal, this is what we've synthesized and uh discussed and uh uh discussed at length with our companies and partners to create is the idea to go from one type of development in RTP to adding three additional new types of development in RTP. So going forward, we have we would have four development options that our land owners could choose from or opt into to create this new innovation district uh

structure and development patterns in RTP. So today on the left side of the screen here you see kind of our traditional existing place type in the park. Uh you have those trees that buffer traditional you know lowdensity suburban development office building with a parking lot usually a surface parking lot. Um that would still be available under our proposal to land owners but they would have other options to choose from.

So the first is the idea of what we call the enhanced corporate campus. You can see here from this rendering gets a little bit denser. You can you can exceed that current uh 15% building coverage, go to a higher level of business uh of building coverage if you want to grow your business or expand your business on your existing land footprint. You can grow uh in in your existing uh land ownership here in RTP, which is great because we don't have any more land to sell folks.

So, being able to densify and put that land to higher and better use, we think supports some of our companies who maybe want to consolidate units into RTP or otherwise grow their business. This gives them that opportunity without those land use constraints that some of them are butdding up against today. The second is the idea for residential neighborhood

development. So, we took this from the Durham comprehensive plan uh to create this idea of a more dense walkable uh neighborhood, that 15-minute neighborhood idea. We think there's opportunity to create some of these in RTP to support that increasing residential usage. We see our peers moving toward, you know, the ability to walk to work or bike to work or just live closer to work.

things that our employees don't enjoy today due to that inability to build residential in the park. And lastly is the idea of more mixeduse density nodes. So taking the hub RTP concept and allowing it to happen elsewhere in the park, creating more of those mixeduse centers uh that we also see clearly in demand from an office perspective. 0.

So uh hopefully as we move forward with implementation uh we achieve some of these goals here, right? Our goal at the end of this, if we think 50 years in the future, hopefully through this process, we've strengthened RTP's position as a leading research and development center. We've aligned our development patterns with what our peers are doing nationally

and globally. We continue to attract and retain talent from our area universities and create that environment where they want to be and where innovation wants to thrive. And hopefully, we put our land to higher and better use as we think about our regional growth patterns and some of the challenges and opportunities that come with that. So that's the vision uh that you've heard many times that we've sort of worked on.

Um now how does this translate into the proposal that's before you today? So a little bit of background before we get into that for us to even get before you today. We've taken a lot of steps uh with other partners and other actions that are necessary to move this forward. So the first key one of those actions happened in January of this year within the park under our land covenants.

All of our park owners and tenants are a part of what's called the RTP owners and tenants association. And so our first step in this process was to amend our land covenants with a vote of that association. That was held on January 31st of 2025 and did receive a 96% majority of the voters of that association to approve that and then allow us to move forward into this resoning process with you all. [snorts]

Uh we also did the same with Wake County. We were there back in June um on our with the Wake County uh board of commissioners. They unanimously approved changes to their zoning ordinance uh on June 16th. um that amendment will take effect when Durham County takes uh similar action.

So that way everything sort of takes effect at once and we have one change for all of the owners in the park. So in Wake County that zoning district is called RA or research applications. And so in working on the proposal that's before you uh which is UC3 or university and college uh 3, we identified that that district as it exists in the current UDO would allow us the kind of flexible framework we need to accommodate these types of development options would fit very well with our land covenants and what we've created under that process. Uh so we shaped UC3 in a way to be very flexible uh to accommodate the development framework uh very similar to RA. So those districts are very comparable and similar and that's why we landed on the the UC district as the mechanism to do this because of the flexibility it provided to accommodate what is a relatively complex uh vision and development within RTP.

So the proposal that is before you um as Aaron mentioned it reszones all of RTP in Durham County with the exception of one parcel. That's what you see here um on uh the map on the right side of the screen. Everything highlighted uh in that red uh slashed line. and most of it is green with our current district.

0. Uh this is just a straight rezoning. There's no development plan included. This just simply unlocks the ability for redevelopment to happen in the future.

Individual proposals would still come through the site plan process that the the county planning department runs. Uh very standard um as it exists today. So that would be the process going forward um under this resoning. And then just a couple of highlights.

You have all of the details of the specifics of the zoning text amendment, but I just want to kind of very quickly run through the bullet points of what that proposed text amendment does. Um, it makes some text changes to a number of articles of the existing UDO. That's really just to accommodate uh some changes to the UC district and some exemptions to those those standards that would allow the

0 to move forward. So, um, one of the key changes is definitional. So that way that UC district which was designed for our universities and used by them would add that science research parks are allowed in that district too to let us take advantage of that same similar framework that internal campus idea as Robin mentioned that would fit very neatly uh with our unique circumstances in RTP. Uh there are changes to the use table in article 5 that allows these new uses that we've talked about.

So our current districts largely align with our land covenants and restrict those uses to science research purposes all those things. This would allow those residential uses, additional uh commercial uses, it would include opportunity for more civic uses, um expand office uses. All those categories are included in that use table. Um as I mentioned, it includes some exemptions for the UC3 district.

This largely came from some back and forth with our consulting team. 0 vision. It was sort of hard to fit those within some of those existing standards in the current

UDO. So, we proposed some exemptions from that just to allow for the new types of development that we're envisioning to move forward um in RTP. Um and as Robin mentioned, we do have that transitional use area where those additional standards are are still in place. They're a little bit more stringent that provides for that buffer between any existing uses outside of the park.

So, that way we're not uh you know creating uh really dense development uh up against industrial or other uses that it would be incompatible with. um that is the same uh uh transitional use area that applies to the UC district which is Duke University. So we did uh replicate that from the proposal. And lastly um I wanted to just show this map from our vision plan.

So as Robin mentioned, we are required to submit what's called a a master plan document to unlock this district. It's one of the requirements of the UC district. 0 vision plan. Uh you have the full draft and your agenda item. We'll have a nicely formatted uh version of that for you for your final item on November 24th. No substantive changes,

but it'll look a little bit nicer. 0. Where do we think some of these uses might locate where we have higher uh more dense intense uses? How does that look when it relates to the wersheds and ecological conditions in the park?

Um, and you'll also see on this map, um, we've we developed with our park companies this idea for a signature park greenway that would provide north south connectivity. And as we started talking about the future of land use and where development might go, it became very clear that this idea was one very well received by our companies, but two would sort of be a key organizing principle for where we think some of this development might happen. So you see it also represented in the map here with that dashed uh yellow line throughout just to highlight this kind of big move that we want to make long-term in the park that will accommodate uh connections throughout our new mixeduse uh centers and and higher intensity development and provide greater recreational opportunities in the park as well. So um this is a conceptual plan. It's flexible. We think it'll likely change over time as market

conditions change and and the park needs to respond to that. 0. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions and if we need to bring Scott up to answer any questions, I'm sure he'll be happy to weigh in as well. >> Thank you so so much for this and I know this has been we've had lots and lots of conversations, so I appreciate you consolidating everything and bringing it to us as a board.

Um, I guess my question is more so for like planning staff because I know we're going through the overall UDO rewrite. Um, but this is, you know, Wake County is waiting on Durham County to take action. So, what is the plan for like planning department of having this be a separate amendment? >> Yeah. So given that Wake County had already, you know, approved that and were waiting on us, we were not trying to undertake any text amendments, but knowing that, you know, we didn't want to um halt these folks as an applicant.

So we are obviously moving through this process um and we were we are watching it and incorporating it with our UDO draft and making sure that any changes that are proposed um are reflected in the new UDO as well. So it should be a pretty seamless transition. Um, and we've been working with uh Travis throughout the process to make sure that's the case. >> So then if we vote on it in November 24th, 27th, what is it?

Um, then like y'all have already had it that like it would go into effect that day or like when would it be? >> Yeah, I think right now the text says January 1, 2026. Um, and the new UDO will not be going then. So we'll we'll have some time to make sure that they align.

>> Wonderful. Thank you, Commissioner Britain. >> Only thing I have to say is just thank you for your presentation. Um, and I want to say thank you to Travis and Scott because before I was even sworn in, you brought me in to explain what was happening. And I think if I didn't

have that, you know, introduction, I would have been totally confused. So I just want to say thank you for um you know keeping you know the connection and because now I have a full grasp of what is happening and so um I'm just looking forward to this transformation and the hearing is going to be on November 24th the public hearing is that okay cool thank you yeah and also just adding I know the first slide you had all the colleges our next step is hopefully we get DPS listed and those education partners Commissioner Jacobs. >> Uh, thank you. Um, again, I I just I know we we've got the two two items. One is the tax amendment, and this is the land use item, but um, again, this is another monumental uh, decision that we will be making. And I I really want to lift up a few things.

One is um Commissioner Burton and I were both at the opening uh for the exhibit on the history of RTP that's at the history museum right now. I really recommend everyone to check out that exhibit. Um there was a speaker uh M Paul who's writing a book about RTP who spoke and I learned so much from his comments. And one of the things that really stood out to me was understanding that when this first happened in the 1950s, North Carolina was the second poorest country um country, excuse me, the second poorest state in the country.

That is was really mind-blowing to me. um and how people worked across the state. Um, some of the leaders of

RTP were from Winston Salem, but how people came together across sectors because this was viewed as a vehicle to lift up all of the people of North Carolina and to transform the education and the economy of this entire state. And I just I think it's really important for us to keep that historical perspective to know where we have come from in this state and to know understand how that what still is at the heart of RTP which is education and research and innovation that is still going to be the heart of RTP. But um I think this is coming at a really salient moment in time where sadly, you know, looking at all the exhibits, you know, it was like people work together like Terry Samford

and um other political leaders to get the EPA campus in RTP, the NIH campus in RTP, RTI. These were the foundational blocks of RTP that are under attack right now. Okay, I know I go on really long. I'm sorry.

Um, anyway, what I want to say is that this is really important at this moment in time for this continued success and thriving of RTP. So, I want to thank you, Travis, Scott, everyone who's worked on this. We are so fortunate to have visionary leadership from both of you and from the RTP board, all the companies. This is a leap of faith.

Um, and I'll save another comment till the next item, but I just I just want to say thank you and this is really exciting. >> Thank you. Thank you all so much. Okay,

then that moves us to the next item is y'all two, right? Or planning staff. No, no, no. Okay.

Well, I appreciate it. >> We were just combining the two items in >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

>> Oh, okay. >> I have one more comment, >> which is Sorry. Um I I would like staff to please comment on something that you know during this election there's been a lot of conversation um about um development and I also want to really highlight what was raised in this presentation that we are expecting a million more people in our region 400,000 dwelling units. That's a lot of units and we are going to have to build a lot of housing for people if we don't want people to be displaced, have more unhoused residents, and have housing prices increase. Um,

and that that we're going to continue to be a job center for people. Could you though talk about another issue that's I think there's been a lot of fear around which is that with the new UDO there will be no environmental requirements and because I noticed with this um the zoning text amendment and in the comp plan it says that the RTP will still have to comply with all the environmental regulations. Could you please explain that because there's a there's been information circulating in the community that is not correct. >> I just I just want to wait I want you to answer um just trying to make it brief because it is separate from the item as it's listed on the agenda.

So to just be mindful of the agenda and what we're discussing today. >> Okay. But there was something in this item around requiring um re u meeting the environmental requirements. Yeah.

And that's what I want to highlight. >> Absolutely. Yep. So they will have to meet every part of article 8.

So when they come through for a site plan, essentially what we will look at is all of those environmental requirements they are absolutely still held to on every single site. Um and additionally they are uh committing to 10% tree coverage throughout the entirety of the campus on our side which is uh preservation of 500 acres of forest. Um which technically we don't have the legal authority to require from them. um that is only a requirement that we can instill in the city.

So we are actually um they are working with us to provide more coverage to meet our canopy coverage goals throughout Durham as well. So they are actually going above and beyond uh what is required in article 8. >> Okay. Thank you.

And Travis, could you just talk for a minute about the RTP greenway vision because that was blew me away and that's in the second item. Yeah, I would be I would be happy to talk about that. Um, so we began to develop this idea um as we were

working through this planning process over the past couple of years because we identified that as we think about adding these new mixed use nodes, there's obviously a need for connectivity between and among them. And uh within the park today, we have about 20 miles of trails that are exist. They're open to the public. They primarily run along our our road ride ofways.

So they provide a primarily recreational opportunity, but in some cases it's maybe not the most pleasant experience because you're largely up against one of our NC dot roadways. So the idea to take that legacy of the park where we have these greenways and create really a a new signature greenway that will meet our connectivity needs and also provide an amenity to park employees, park companies, residents, um really made a lot of sense to us and as we discussed and socialized it with our companies uh we really received very positive feedback about that idea and the benefits it would bring to the park. Uh so through that that's really we began to identify the need to include that in our land use vision because it becomes sort of a key organizing principle for how we create this. Um at this point it is obviously just a vision. It's it's a

line on a map. It's going to take a lot of work that largely we will have to lead about acquiring those easements, working with land owners as they redevelop to actually create that greenway. Uh but we thought it was important to embed it early on. Uh, one of our intentions is as we work through some of the private pieces of this that will fall under our land covenants that we might include some requirements around um, incorporating that greenway as parcels redevelop so we're at least able to create different segments of it throughout and then we can continue to work with other land owners on easements and eventually building it out over time.

Uh, so that's really the idea. Um, certainly a long way to go in implementation, but it so far has been very positively received and we hope will become a key amenity um, in the park going forward. We also think it provides the opportunity for different types of greenway activation. So, our region benefits today and as we discussed earlier, the the rail trail creates another great opportunity for a lot of recreational greenways. Um, we also think as the park redevelops, maybe there's opportunities for more activated uh greenway development. So, for example, if you think about the Atlanta belt line and some of the the development that faces that that belt line, really activates that greenway,

we're curious to see if there might be opportunities for different types of a greenway experience throughout RTP. 0. >> Thank you all so much that she did. Okay.

Well then we will move we'll have the presentation on the financial strategies required for capital improvement planning [snorts] and we have 45 minutes allocated for this item. Do you all think 30 minute presentation 15-minute questions for Yeah, perfect. Yeah. Good morning again, commissioners. I'd like to um introduce to some and welcome back to others our esteemed financial advisors um Deck Associates and we are grateful to have um Doug Carter who is

the president and managing partner of the firm as well as Jeremy Carter. And there are others who may weigh in on the conversation as well as we also have um our finance and budget staff who are here. We all rely on them so heavily um as we manage our capital improvement plan. Um some of the most important activities that we do as a county involves um our financial partners.

uh debt management is complex and making sure that we um establish a framework that is longstanding is something that Durham County has done quite well. Our capital finance plan was established back in the '9s and it has served us well. Um throughout the years we have refined

what we've done and how we've managed it to withstand changing in markets as well as shifts in economies and population growth etc. Um so we have a great team here in the county. It's phenomenal having partners that can help you sort through that. So with that I'll transition to Doug.

>> Jeremy's going to start. I'm going to I'm going to call Jeremy today. Okay. >> Thank you, manager.

Um, chairperson, members of the board, thank you so much for having us today. It's great to see uh all all of you uh here in the room today. Uh, as mentioned, uh, Doug and I have been working on the county's behalf as financial adviser for many years. We we appreciate the opportunity to to do that. Uh and as the manager also said, you have an incredible uh finance staff, some of whom are sitting behind us uh uh here in the room today. And to mention uh this is our newest associate uh

Dylan. He's not participating in the presentation today uh but is here observing. So let's see if I can figure out how to make this work. Okay, here we go.

So just a few market updates to start our discussion today. Uh the financial markets uh as many of you probably know um are being driven by a lot of economic uncertainty at the moment. Uh it it it can move the market in one week. I I had an example of uh just a couple weeks ago of two county offerings uh that happened one day apart and it was a very different result uh from a Wednesday to a Thursday on highly rated uh North Carolina counties.

So there is a a lot of economic uncertainty that's moving the markets particularly the bond markets. Uh we we're seeing consistent rise in the yield curves. uh that's abating some of the actions that are happening that has to do with Fed actions, supply and demand and the like.

Um and we're also seeing a correction of the spread imbalance between taxable and tax exempt markets. That's a good thing. They were trading right on top of each other. Uh and that's also uh moved in a new direction, more normalized and it's good.

Uh the financial markets now continues. Uh we just gave a breakdown of the Durham County fixed rate uh debt. You'll see your general obligation at 31% limited obligation at 68 and then you see uh portions that are made up by the SRF loans, sewer revs, installment purchases and the likes. Um we're likely to see some of the sewer revenue bonds go up over time.

Um, we just heard that wonderful project uh that's happening in RTP and that's going to uh bring additional needs going forward. But this total debt of around 593 million, it's manageable compared to your peers. Um, >> can you bring the mic closer to you? >> Oh, I'm sorry. You can pull the whole system closer to you.

>> How about that? >> Yeah, you have to get like real up close and personal. >> Much much better. I can hear myself now.

Okay. So the total debt at 593 million is manageable. Um and one of the tools that the county has used for quite a long time started uh with a past CFO George um when when he was here acting as CFO is your construction period financing. It's so valuable to the county.

You're basically borrowing funds as you need them until a project's complete and then we fix it out. And that's made a huge um has been a huge benefit and value to the county. Okay. Uh current fixed rate markets.

I'm not going to spend too much time on these. This is what nerdy folks like me in the industry like to look at. But these are uh kind of where interest rates are moving. You'll see the 10-year interest rates are starting to fall. Um that's uh the 10-year uh MMD and US uh

uh treasuries. Uh MMD is the uh index that we price your bonds on. So that just shows that kind of they're both moving in the right direction. The big question is will they continue to move in that direction?

Um you know inflationary risk, recession, things of that nature can definitely move this trend. um higher. [snorts] As I mentioned, the MMD curve, this is uh what we price your bonds off of. I won't get heavily into this.

Uh you'll see we're still a little higher than uh the 2024 numbers. Um but as I mentioned on the slide before, things are moving in the right direction. Okay. What may be next in the financial markets?

There's multiple factors. Uh the Fed has initiated short-term rate cuts. Uh we saw that again last week, last Wednesday. Um but Chairman Powell did make multiple comments uh that were

a little hawkish on future uh rate cuts. Uh the market's already lowering their expectation of that. I think we're in the 60some percent uh expectation range now. So we'll see how that plays out.

Um overall downward pressure on long-term rates will be good. Borrowing at the federal level of course is always has an impact on our markets uh particularly the ones that uh you have to borrow money in. Uh Durham County remains highly rated. I mean you're you're the best of the best.

You're you're AAA across uh all three major rating agencies. um you're because of that AAA rating, you should outperform uh others who are issuing bonds as we start looking at what you may have coming down the road. And um you're you're very unique here in Durham County because of what the county is made up of with the educational um participants, RTP as we were just hearing about hearing about and the like. Um so you just need to stay the

course. y'all are doing everything appropriately and uh we think you're just well positioned to continue to maintain your AAA rating uh as we uh continue to stay the course. Uh upcoming financings, I put a little block there on that. Uh you have your geo uh ban that is currently outstanding.

Uh we're looking to have that taken out in March. That's the current target date. uh some things uh related to the federal shutdown depending on when that happens could move that date but that's when we're currently targeting and then there's some wastewater projects uh that we're also looking at that'll happen later in 2026 uh a little more it's not moving there it goes a little more on the rating agencies uh and their criteria and how your AAA fits into that uh you know why did they adjust their criteria and how that may affect you they all call it something different criteria scorecard the like u they all have their specifics

so uh you'll see like macro macroeconomic shifts in investor sentiment can play into it slightly more importantly uh your capital planning priorities that's a huge part of it debt profiles etc ESG considerations they're a little less now than they used to be and there's other blackbox re blackbox reasons that we simply don't know uh what goes on um inside these boardrooms at the rating agencies and they're making their criteria. So uh what are the implications for Durham County? As I mentioned before, you're very unique as a county. You're very diverse and that uh allows you lines you up very well in the AAA category.

Um you have unique debt pre pressures though as one of North Carolina's Big 10. the growth that you're having here uh and the demand for services will obviously bring additional challenges as you try to manage the county moving forward. It's a good problem to have um

people coming to Durham County, but it but it's something that does bring certain challenges with it. uh the the strong financial management and planning here at the county. We really need to keep stay focused on the general fund fund balance policy meeting and exceeding the policy uh cash levels and policy uh debt service uh percentages. Uh the debt service fund balance as as we said is also very important to meet uh the affordability goals and to provide as we say in the presentation cushion um to meet the financial market movements uh currently going in your direction but we never know what the future is.

And then the active role the governing body in f in future uh sound policy decisions. you're already doing this and you're doing it very very well. If you look at the reports that the agencies write write about you, it's all excellent. Uh and so y'all just need to stay the course with that continued uh sound management. As I mentioned earlier, you're already the best of the

best AAA across the board. And >> can I make one comment this before it transitions to my part? >> Oh. Oh, yeah.

Do this again. I talked so loud I figured it would be picked up. Thank you. Uh if you look at the at if you look at the criteria and where Durham County stands, there are three things that are most important.

Number one, your economy. And I'm going to I'm a numbers nerd, so I'm going to give you a number that you're going to like because we just talked about RTP. The second thing is your equity and fund balance levels. They are exceedingly important because you control them.

You don't control your economy. You make contributions, but they're very important. And then finally, the active role of this governing body in policy setting and management of your budget. When you put those three things together, they're really what is the mainstay for the implications for your credit as time moves forward. Those are the three biggies. I want to give you

one thing on economy because the RTP people are so interesting and I've read a book on well and many articles on the RTP. I find it so interesting. Without it, we would not be the state we are now. There's no question.

We we would be an entirely different state. Um you know there there are measurements of distinct business entities and these distinct business entities would be in a place and have unique functioning like the RTP. Um currently the RTP and they're not here any longer but I'm pretty close on my numbers right now. The RTP alone contributes 5% of the state's gross domestic product.

One place 5% of the e of the GDP of the state of North Carolina's economy. There's only one other entity in this state this close. They're kind of tied. They kind of compete with with each other and that's Douglas International Airport in Charlotte. So you have two entities, unique business entities that contribute

more than 10% of the state's GDP. So what if we hadn't had an RTP? What would have taken that place? And what would have happened if we don't have one of the country's largest airports in our state as well?

Your uniqueness is incredible and I think over time will become more so. Um I'll make one final comment. I think the RTP contribution to the GDP will increase dramatically once you have retail, other business and households inside that community. And I really applaud your investments in that community for wastewater and other purposes to make it so.

You've got a great business entity there and you've supported it and I'm sure we'll continue to do that. Okay, let's talk CIP a little. Uh you do a 10-year CIP. you you have a really really good CIP process and one that's been around for a long time and one that isn't static. There

are constant improvements in how you do that CIP and how you define needs and dollars. 2 billion CIP. Um, as you can well see by its breakdown, it's primarily for education. Good for you.

That's a very primary function of counties. And then your environmental and general government and public safety and others are also significant contributors to that CIP. But to give you some dollar totals just so you can think about uh comparing now to the next 10-year period, your current outstanding debt. Now, you have improvements to the county that are made outside debt. You have grants and your own payo sources and things of that nature, but your currently outstanding debt is $1,700 approximately. This is all rounded.

Seven little less than $1,700 per capita. And per capita debt measurement is one thing that people know about your CIP. although not all debt, but a large portion of it would be debt funded is in excess of $6,000 per person for the next 10 years. And so if you have debt outstanding of $1,700 per capita and a CIP that's over $6,000 per capita, debt being a considerable portion of that, you can see that a lot of improvements are going to be made throughout the county, but it's also going to mean that the county in retaining its um policy direction, its policy refinement, how it issues its debt, how it gets those great grants like that corridor. All of that is going to be very important because of the size and dimension of your program. Very similar

to what you would see in Meckllinmberg and Wake in terms of dimension. Okay, let me just talk a little bit in general about CIPs in general. They're all getting bigger. Even for the small counties and cities, they're all growing.

Now, inflation was our killer after 2018 and 19. We've seen a great deal of inflation in the cost of the assets that we're building or acquiring. And unfortunately, I had this great hope that somehow that was going to go down. I've sort of pulled back a little.

I think the increase is down, but the absolute dollar values, I just not sure they're going to go back. I still wish they would, but I'm just not sure that they are. So, CIPs are growing because of economic conditions, uh, what we just talked about, primarily inflationary ones, economic conditions inside the

county that create growth and need for facilities. Your facilities are aging. you have a large amount of new facility request. I'm going to give you some other big examples.

Uh the three of us who have come up today live in Charlotte inside Meckllinmberg County. 5 billion in schools a short time ago. 7 billion for schools a couple or three years ago. Y'all have a big investment from in schools as you've seen from your own CIP.

So, these things are out there and are contributing towards the CIP and how it's funded. Um, we've seen higher rates for borrowed sources over time, folks. A year ago, we were seeing three, well, maybe a little more than a year ago, we were seeing 3% on your 20% on your 20-year deals. They've grown considerably because of conditions that have happened. uh many of which Jeremy

mentioned earlier. Now, we're seeing a downturn. We're not nearly back to where we need to be, but we're hoping to move in that direction. I will say this to you, when we issue your GEO bonds hopefully in March, um I think unless we see some huge change, we're going to see a 35ish rate for those bonds for your 20-year bonds.

So, better than the over 4% that we might have seen a short time ago. So those are things that have made the CIP more difficult difficult to fully fund. You had increase inflationary cost on the asset cost themselves and you had higher interest rates. It was sort of like um all the bad things happening at one time.

There's also been search for new resources available to fund construction and pay debt service. You guys are one of the few counties that implemented a half percent sales tax for transit and transportation orientation. that was a specific tax that did a specific thing.

It was to way a way to separate funding of those assets from the general sources that you put into your CIP. Now, we personally think that those are good things because they do separate funding and try to find to find distinct funding sources for distinct things. Now, the county that Jeremy and I and Dylan live in have another vote tomorrow, and we're going to vote as to whether or not we add another percent to our half percent for transportation, as it's now called in a more full range way, mobility improvements. And so there is another example of how people are having to look at defining specific sources for specific kinds of investments inside the community. And then CIP, one more final thing that makes them somewhat more difficult to fund is timing and priority. Everybody wants their asset now and

that's understandable. But we do have to prioritize and put in a timing framework the investment in those assets as we all know. Uh quick few items and I'm trying we have 30 minutes right? >> Yeah we have 30 minutes.

>> Okay. I'm trying to stay in that. >> Oh like yeah like 10 more minutes. >> Okay good.

Uh first we know the CIP should first be driven by policy dynamics. Second, we have to identify and prioritize the individual projects. And then we have to define the timing of the CIP implementation. And as I just said earlier, that's probably the most difficult task because all everyone wants it now. We all want it now, but we have to do it in a time frame. So, if the CIP defines projects and project timings inside a 10-year time period, the issuance of debt because your asset acquisition is

primarily funded by debt. Debt really defines the construction timing. It's when you go to the markets to borrow that you define specifically when you'll create debt service and have to how you have to pay for that. Um cash flow needs heavily influence debt issuance.

There are many of us who have worked with the county of Durham for a long time who remember the number of years we talked about the northern high school and the long time period it took to place it to fund it and so forth. And so if timing on the CIP is one thing, timing of obtaining funding when you actually get to the implementation of that item off of the CIP that becomes very important. And I mentioned cash flow because most capital projects that you fund take 24 to 36 months to construct. We've been accustomed as borrowers to

borrowing all of that upfront, but Durham was one of the ones that broke that mold. And I'm going to talk more about that in a minute. Now the third item I want to mention and I'm going to talk a little bit about it in the time frame and perhaps we can do that at a later time is how do you address the discrepancies between the projects that's inside a CIP and when they actually get funded? How do we move those closer together?

Because once they're defined in a CIP, all of a sudden the wants start. We want our project. Um, and there is always in a large entity of government with multiple projects like Durham County where you have a timing mismatch between when something appears on the CIP and when you actually fund it. And this county has worked in particular on improving the projections of timing of the CIP to the actual cost me metrics of

issuing that debt. Um, the CIP does not affect how much revenues you have to have in your budget every year. Paying debt service and receiving grants and matching your payo does. And so that's why we're attempting to look at the CIP and matching that to the costs that actually come into the budget, payment of debt, service, grants, payo, and so forth.

There's also been a real um effort lately uh I we are financial adviser to the city of Raleigh and they're heavily looking now into what is called the steady state for the issuance of bonds. We've talked about this with this commission more than once and that is how do you define the process of debt votes voting go bonds and mix that with when you're going to have timing on nonvoted issuance debt of debt like your limited obligation bonds. How do you

create a steady state? How do you create a process that says maybe when we vote school bonds the next time we don't vote every school bond we want or need but we're going to vote them every two years or every four years or every six years and then show within that CIP as you do when that vote might come up. That means you may not have to do two and a half billion that they did in Meckllinburgg because that's to be spent over seven years. Conversely, the city of Charlotte inside the county of Meckllinburgg does a bond issue vote every other year and it's uniform.

And so that level of what we refer to as an adviser as the steady state is one of the ways to sort of blend the timing of the debt issuance together with the implementation of the CIP. It's a really good way to do that. Um, the other thing about the steadystate method and how you might

look at those timing, matching those timings is right now community perception of when a project is ready to be used is interesting. I vote bonds for schools, right? And I want my school next year to start, put the shovel in the ground. And so I think it's really important to look at community perceptions, marrying when something will happen within that bond issue and so forth.

I know you're short on time so I'm going to move really quickly. Um I want to talk about county innovations, financial in innovations that you've done. Well, you've had financial policies for many years. The p first printed version I saw was 2007.

They've been been updated multiple times since 2007. And in 2007, shortly after I began my firm, was the first printed financial policies I'd ever seen out of a county. They had generally been verbalized. So, I think you need to

really be complimented for the fact that you've had them for a long time and you constantly update them. Um I want to mention one other point off of this page because I see the chair is giving me time to move on motions and I understand that and I know it's a long day. Durham and Meckllinmberg are the two most unique large urban counties in the state and that's because they have a city in them that consumes a material portion. In this county you're 350,000 people and the city's 300.

250 250 and the city's over a million. You're unique. None of the other urban counties have that. 3 million. So when you have a city population and a county population that are so close, how you look at urban densities, how you decide who does what and who pays for what and who creates debt for

what entities is very important. You've also done many joint facility things, some recent ones, that's really good. parking combined with housing, a lot of important, I think, blendings that create cost savings and create great spaces in an urban environment. And then you've done a great on transportation plans because we have to head back to Charlotte after this is over.

I'm going to go in on your website and look at the presentation on the BRT because I'm going to find that very interesting. I'm sure debt management accomplishments and I'll be finished. You were one of the first in the state to say we're not going to issue bonds to create for construction for the next 24 to 36 months and put all the money in the bank right now, especially when the interest rates were earning off of those dollars in the bank are less than what we're paying. Now, they're about equal right now, but that's the first time I've seen that in 20 years.

And so, you created this construction period borrowing. You were one of the earliest ones. George

Quick, one of my favorite people in life. and I miss him. Um was the first to say I'm going to pay place these privately and not issue them publicly because I can get a better interest rate and pay a lower cost of issuance. So Durham has been a real uh foundational entity in doing those kinds of things.

I'm going to finish with takeaways chairperson and I apologize real quick. Keep watching financial markets. We talk to your finance folks about this all the time. Claudia as a finance person wants to know about them a lot.

So we try to keep her in the loop on what's happening in markets. Um in maintaining your county's GOAA rating. I cannot emphasize to you how important maintaining your fund balances and equities are. That's nearly a third of your rating and you control it. You continue to look at adjusting your funding and timing. do a dynamically developed CIP, be an

innovator in debt management, and keep Durham as the A or the North Carolina powerhouse. There's arguments to be made that you are the economic powerhouse, but I put a a and a the in there so I didn't make any of my other clients upset. A little over time. Apologize.

>> I appreciate it. I don't think any arguments are necessary. It's just fact. Um, but thank you so much for your presentation, uh, and the work that you'll continuously do.

And I know our interim CFO, Crystal, is also here. Yes, CFO. Yes, no longer interim, our official CFO, Crystal, is here. Um, and our budget staff, thank you so much for working so diligently with them. Uh, and I agree with you completely. I know this is something that we've discussed as a board on like the bonds especially about wanting to get on a regular bond schedule because it's good financial practice but also it helps ease the burden on our voters on our residents

not just voters of especially after this property tax revaluation year uh to not have to do these massive massive bonds at once and have tax rate increases but spread it out, have it more sustainable, be able to show folks the growth growth of investment that they're making. Um, so I really appreciate it. I did have one question. I know manager Hager, I know you forwarded me uh Crystal's email this morning, but I haven't had a chance to look it over thoroughly, but maybe while we have the team here and I can ask.

I had reached out to manager Hager about what investment um opportunities there are for local governments. Like what are we legally allowed to do with taxpayer dollars? And cuz I was looking up at like what other counties in North Carolina and I think Guilford County um and some maybe Meckllinburgg was in there invest with like the state treasures office in like these municipal bonds and I know that Crystal sent an

email. You forwarded to me this morning. >> I did and my apologies. Crystal answered this question um probably about three weeks ago and it got stuck in my draft folder cuz I I some of y'all know I work in the middle of the night and sometimes I come back in the morning and I forget to push send but Chris shared uh the framework that um we have as counties to do investments and I know um we've consulted over the years with deck as we've looked at how we move forward The county currently maintains its vestments in the North Carolina Capital Management Trust.

There are um two other pools that counties and local governments can use. One is the North Carolina Investment Pool and the other the North Carolina Cooperative Liquid Asset Security System. I know Doug and um Jeremy can share further, but did want to share that information. We'll also forward that to the board.

>> Beautiful. Yeah, cuz I know I now I can't remember the one that I had mentioned to you, man. I think it was I'll find the name and I'll bring it up after, but cuz it was something where like when you invest in these bonds and it's with the state treasurer's office and that they stay liquid so you can always pull out that they're not locked in there. >> Yes.

Have you seen what is the benefit and the downfall of like because you're only allowed to use nonallocated funds or non unassigned fund balance that isn't going to be needed in the immediate future of and I'm just wondering just because we have limited revenue sources. >> Right. Right. of just putting in like all and our Keith is going to have a heart attack.

All of our un [laughter] uh allocated fund balance into a fund like that. >> Oh god. >> Yeah. >> Wow. C >> can I just say something maybe on the manager and the CFO's behalf? >> Investments in North Carolina are strictly controlled by the state

statutes in North Carolina. You have no home rule over investments other than how you distribute your investments among the legally authorized sources of investment. Okay, so that's first and foremost. We all know that investments are based on safety, uh, liquidity and yield in that order.

And our North Carolina statutes are huge into safety because we don't want to lose money, right? So, no stock market investments unless you're a pension fund, things of that nature. I I will just say this too, chairperson, I think the county does a good job distributing inside the legally available means that it has for its investment strategies and it keeps a level of liquidity, but it also has for its fund balance levels and other things that are not quite as liquid so that you can get a bit higher yield. But unfortunately, we don't get to do a whole lot of investment innovation.

>> Thank you, Commissioner Burton. >> Thank you, Chair Alam, and thank you for presenting. This is my first um presentation as a new county commissioner around um our you know, how we stand f um with our funding, our fund balance and all of that. And this was very educational because one of the things at when before I was elected and you would hear our residents talk about well what is this AAA bond rating?

Why is this AAA bond rating is important? And it's very important because it allows us to borrow at the lowest interest rate so we can do these really massive projects, right? It's just like in our own homes, right? if you want to have a good credit rating and get at the lowest interest rate possible so you can do these things and traveling around the state. Um I've done this a lot this year as a commissioner just looking at different counties and municipalities and not having the funding to do the

things that we do that that we do here in Durham County. So I really appreciate you presenting. I learned a lot from this presentation and I think one of the biggest takeaways that I received is really important that we work together as three entities, the city of Durham, um DPS and us when we make these decisions on how do we do these projects. It's it's really important that we have these discussions.

So, I just want to say thank you for all this really great information and we are the economic engine of the state. So, I just want to put that out there, too. That's why I put the in there. Uh, Commissioner, can I mention one other thing to you sort of as one of the arrows in your quiver when you talk about ratings and AAA's?

>> Let me say this to you. Lowest interest cost is a biggie. It's my big thing. But I'll tell you what's even bigger than interest rates.

>> Market access. >> Doug, can you move the microphone? >> I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Uh, what is even bigger in my personal opinion, having been in this business quite a few

years, is market access. Folks, in 2008 and n when we saw market meltdown from financial markets, as you'll remember, many firms went under, banks were merged, things of that nature. There were enormous potentials for non access to markets. You simply couldn't find anybody to buy your bonds for a time period.

If you're AAA, you don't have a lot of worry about market access because somebody always wants to buy from somebody they know is going to pay them back. So to me that AAA is interest rates don't ever vary from that. I agree with it fully. But even more importantly, market access.

When times get tough, you can get to the market when poorly rated people, if they get to it, it's a cost that's unaffordable. Commissioner Jacobs. >> Well, good to see you all. Somehow it's

always comforting when you come [laughter] and tell us no matter what, especially in this time of really chaos. Uh it's comforting to hear you all give us, you know, say we're we're we're doing okay. Um I do want to also highlight that you know when when we see that these bonds are increasing and like you noted economic conditions the role that the state and the federal government are having on us because the reason why we're spending so much on education in our CIP is because the state is not providing that funding to us. So what we're seeing across North Carolina since 2010 is the pressure at the local level to do these huge bonds that for things that we shouldn't have to be paying for. So I just I think that's really important.

Um, I also want to really lift up your point that you made at the end about being innovative because I think that is going to be the key for us. Durham County's secret sauce for the future um is around innovation and partnership. I mean, one, we've already seen our amazing staff goes out and really pursues grants. Um, they also do a great job at things like value engineering and things like that. But I just came back from Portland. I was there for a while at this um conference on transit and community and did a lot of site visits um along with Ellen and actually Travis Kraton was there too um [clears throat] and saw how they are have been able to do so much around housing and transit by

partnership collaboration. We're seeing that with the rail trail, but also joint development, public private partnerships and using public land. And Commissioner Burton mentioned, you know, the city, the county, the schools working together. And we have to be much we've got to do a better job at having pieces um CIP investments serving multiple purposes and being more innovative and flexible with our spaces and things that we're doing.

Um so I I think we can do better on that. I think we have a lot of opportunities. Um we between the schools and the county and the city, we own a lot of valuable land. And if we do land use right, and again this gets back to why we do need to have more density because places like Portland are pulling in

transit funding that's also transit oriented development funding because they are doing density. We're not going to get into what the vice chair said about pulling in federal money. We're not going to be able to take advantage of that federal money unless we're doing higher density. It's all connected.

So, um, I think we're we I I'm hopeful for the future, but I think that's going to be a key area where we can really excel as the best um county in the best, you know, economic powerhouse in the state. Thank you. >> You're exactly right, Commissioner. I think P3s are going to fill hopefully a goodly portion of the gap on reduced funding at the two levels of government that you mentioned. I I I hope that it will that that capacity will be there. We're seeing more and more P3s and engaged with our clients on P3s and I just think that that'll be an important

element. But Durham's always been an innovator. So, you're going to be ready for those and more of them. You've already done some when they come.

Thank you, man. >> Okay. Um like you, Commissioner, when um Deck arrives or when I call them on the phone, [laughter] it's always comforting knowing we are headed in the right direction. Um there are some things we need to do to make sure we're in the right place.

Um our fund balance policy we need to refine um to align with our practices. Um right now our policy states that we have a certain level maintained in the general fund which is closer to 35%. It is lower than that amount for various reasons. Our strategy and how we uh reserve our funds now are in our debt service fund. It used to be that when we managed um our debt service payments uh because of our capital finance plan,

those reserves were in the subf fund of the general fund. More information than you want to know, but as we wanted to make sure we had a strategy and how we separated them, our good advisor shared to us that we separated into the debt service fund. So, we've done that practice and if you may recall, we had some shifts in our fund balances. It they went down cuz they were a little bit higher up in the 44% range, which is a a big number.

And um this strategy does make that number go down, but we don't need it to go too low. There have been some factors that we need to recalibrate for. sales taxes are not at the level of growth that they've been in past years. I call it a correction because the rate they grew with the infrastructure come um funds that were infused in the economy uh was not the normal path that they had been in the past. So some of that is an adjustment.

But if our CIP plan is um uh the the actual financial plan is structured with a certain level of sales tax dollars, we have to then adjust on the property tax side. So that means it's more pressure on our property taxpayers. So some reccalibration will happen as we do each year as we adjust our capital improvement plan. The finance team but as well as primarily the budget team because they manage the capital improvement plan budget.

Um we will come to the board with some changes on what we need to do and recalibrations for longer term debt. I I I will say that um from a coaching perspective, I'm sure that the rating agencies are quite pleased that as we put items on the plan, they're seeing that they're moving along much faster because we're shovel ready. If for those of you that have been on the board for a while, you may

have remembered us preaching making sure the projects are shovel ready. And we won't call out some of our own missteps in that, but it does cost if you're planning and building a plan and you're not shovel ready, but you're either bringing it to the voters to for a bond referendum or you're planning for it with limited obligation bonds. So, I I feel like we're doing a a much better job with that. Doing the steady state is another place that you've coached us in.

And if you look at our capital improvement plan, we have bonds um referendums in their plan. And because our spending is aligned with where it should be, I feel great about where we are. So the question will come as we um update the capital improvement plan in the next couple of months is how much we can afford and those factors of inflation, tariffs and a whole lot of other things as well as the cost of the debt will mean that some projects that

may have been on the plan two years ago may need to be adjusted at a different time. So, I'm giving you that context to remind you where we'll be headed. I also know the board has also talked about in some of the joint conversations with the city and schools more coordinated planning and how we do our um debt management. The the example that um Doug shared with Meckllinburgg County with them having um systematic plans for bond referendums at one period and that the city planned referendums for theirs. It it does help with the taxpayer who's um impacted. So, uh, this is a beginning of an ongoing conversation and just wanted to give some of those remarks so the board is aware as we come back um in upcoming meetings sort of where we're headed and um I'm sure that um Deck will come back um to to join us for

conversations, but do know they're always behind the scenes helping us prepare as we uh manage the portfolio, especially as we um become ready to sell our bonds. So again, thank you for all of your support. Commissioner Jacobs, >> just to follow up on what what the county manager said, I think I guess two two areas of struggle I wonder about and maybe you all have other um ideas about this are related to the fact that you know we I think we've gotten better at this but the fact is we're very dependent on how the schools are managing their projects and also the city because a lot of our transportation funding is actually going to city projects and so when things don't get done on a timely manner you get the cost overruns and the cost inflation. I think that's one issue and the second

is around the transparency around how we're we are spending the money and delivering because that also is going to affect our success with other future bond approvals and things like that. So those are just two things that also come to mind. And I will say as far as spending and David can correct me um and crystally, the schools are doing a phenomenal job with the bond spend rate um from the most recent um bond referendum and in the past. Some of that has been the challenge. Um, one unfortunate thing is that um, part of the reason they're able to meet those targets is that the cost of doing the projects have escalated much higher than when we started that planning maybe four years ago, but they're on target and are doing a phenomenal job in my opinion.

Um, and I'm seeing head nods from both Crystal and David from that perspective. But I will say um the strategies that our board has done over the years to help the the schools plan for their projects has been a one of the biggest reasons. You you spend 18 months for project design for a project and I and uh probably about four years ago the the board made available um either payo money or a limited obligation bond so that they could go ahead and start planning for those projects. So when the bond dollars became available, they were able to spend those bond dollars immediately.

And so those policy decisions that the board has made over the years has also helped us in that space. But I did want to give some of that context before Doug spoke. >> For the new commissioners, can I just say one thing? I can remember vividly when you could build a nice high school depending on what county you were in and

what the in cost of construction was between 60 and 75 million. Now they're all $150 million every one of them. So that's what's happened. >> Thank you all so much.

>> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> So we are at a break period. Um, do y'all want to do working lunch, sitting lunch, take a break?

Up to you. Take a break. Okay. About Yeah, there's a lot of items left.

So, it's 1:22. We can just make it even. Come back at 1:22. >> 12:22.

Yeah. So, come back at 1:45. >> 12:45. Okay.

25. 12:45. Okay. Perfect. Sounds good.

It's the bus rapid transit um presentation uh transit vision. Um I'll turn it over to Ellen and [clears throat] Good afternoon everyone. >> Good afternoon. >> My name is Curtis Scarpinado and I am a transportation planner with Durham County.

And to my right is Ellen Beckman, transportation director and to my left is Mary Kate Marukian, our consultant for this study. We have been hard at work on the Durham BRT vision plan for the past few months. And today we're going to share with you all an overview and update on the plan and give you all a chance to provide any feedback you may have. And with that, I'll pass it over to Mary Kate.

>> Hello. Good afternoon. Um, thank you for having me, commissioners. I appreciate the opportunity to share our project update with you. Uh, so as Curtis mentioned, we're going to give just a brief uh background of the project and then an overview of our approach to the

technical analysis and our next steps for the project and uh fill you in on how we would appreciate the um board's involvement throughout the course of the project. So, there's been a lot of good work that's been done and we don't want to create rework here. Um, the Durham County Transit Plan was approved in 2023. We've had quite a bit of public involvement in Durham surrounding transit.

And I'm pretty sure if we asked folks what they want to see uh as far as transit in Durham, they would just walk away at this point. They they've said enough. So, we're using we're starting with uh the good sampling of feedback and the really quality technical work that's already been completed as our baseline. Um the fast study looking at regional connections across the triangle region, the Durham County transit plan, we have congestion mitigation plans.

We have the uh city of Durham short-range transit plan. All these plans have led us to this point. Uh have identified corridors for capital investments that would support frequent and reliable transit. Um, and we think BRT satisfies

as a mode satisfies a lot of those needs across Durham County. So, the purpose of this study is to identify corridors where bus rapid transit or BRT make sense and would be uh competitive and make a difference in the quality of transit for Durham County residents. So, we're going to uh through this study identify the corridors that make the most sense for bus rapid transit investments and then evaluate those corridors um and prioritize them and pursue funding um for those investments. So, what is bus rapid transit or BRT?

So, a little different than just your traditional frequent bus service. Um it's higher quality in that it has really nice stations. um often has dedicated bus lanes and operates most frequently along uh densely uh developed corridors maximizing that ridership potential and making the most of those major capital investments. So this would typically be a high frequency service you know at the very minimum 15 minutes with few stops to make sure that the

service remains reliable and fast for uh uh passengers trying to get from one end to the other. Um so these we would call this an enhanced vehicle service. So really uh nice buses, nice stations. Um our partner at RTA, Joe Malazo, describes it as, you know, BRT, buses resembling trains.

So dedicated busways that allow buses um and other investments that allow buses to move faster through traffic, more green lights for buses, um dedicated bus lanes where feasible um and then again that that traffic signal priority, Q jumps, those kinds of things. So, it's a souped-up bus service that will make um not just frequent bus service, but really efficient and reliable bus service that is competitive with automobiles in Durham County and actually attracts riders um it's a competitive ser it's convenient. It's not just I'm going to take transit today because it's a commitment. I'm going to take transit because it makes the most sense for my commute. So, the BRT vision plan, we are going to get into a technical analysis of corridors. Right now we're starting with

our universe of corridors which we'll talk a little bit more about in detail in a few slides but um we will get into a um evaluating by goal by criteria for each of these corridors. We will be incorporating feedback from previous engagement rounds as well as a three-phased public engagement strategy for this project. Um but we all of this will feed into a prioritization exercise that will help us um understand where where is it best to spend Durham County's precious resources. We have the half cent sales tax that goes towards operating and capital projects and we want to understand which of these uh potential BRT corridors would be the most competitive for potential federal funding and would make the most difference with these precious local transit dollars. Um so incorporating the findings from previous studies again uh all of this will help us develop that long-term vision um over the next 30 years or so. These these aren't um it's not just rolling out frequent service again these are very high quality high

investment um capital uh projects. So, as the um as our ask for the board of county commissioners, eventually we will be asking you to approve the priorities that we are outlining today. Um want to make sure that we are in line with the commissioner's vision for Durham County. Um we want to uh present something that will be of high value to residents in Durham County.

Um eventually we will have um Durham County transit plan funding requests for these projects. So, we want to make sure that um we're asking for approval of the prioritized corridors in our final plan. Um we had a very uh rel relatable uh presentation ahead of this one. Um we have right now buckets of funding identified in the Durham County transit plan for um high uh high frequency or um frequent and reliable transit. We also have funds identified for um frequency

and um just buckets for reliability investments and bus infrastructure. We need to assign those dollar amounts to specific projects and we need to get a little bit more specific with those amounts. So to feed into that very important capital improvement plan, uh we need to take the final plan of prioritized the final list of prioritized BRT investments and put those into the capital improvement plan as our communication vehicle with the public that we hear you. We we're listening and we are going to deliver really high quality uh frequency um here in Durham.

So the project timeline, we're we're cooking. So right now we are in phase one. We're evaluating the initial list of our what we're calling our universe of corridors. So, we're holding public workshops. We are having pop-up sessions at major transit stops across uh Durham. We are having stakeholder advisory committees inviting folks from um you know, municipal partners, partners in

Raleigh that have already entered into project development on a lot of their BRT corridors um and agency partners. We're we're asking for feedback and um involvement from all partners that we know will have a vested interest in the success of these projects. Um so once we get all that feedback and we have a a better idea of the prioritized um or the priorities for evaluation criteria on what makes what do we find most um telling on what will make the biggest impact for these BRT corridors. We'll refine that list over um the winter and early spring and then bring that uh refined list back to the public um to get more uh feedback, have more meetings, more collaboration, and then present a final list of prioritized corridors in the spring and then hopefully have an approved um have a final um list for the commissioners to approve in the fall. So, we have a few committees um with

regards to this project. We want to make sure that we're touching base with our uh partners early and often. So, we have a leadership team that involve the leadership from our partner agencies, the city of Durham, Go Triangle, uh Triangle West, NC DOT, um Durham County. We're all um meeting monthly to make sure that we're talking about these major project milestones.

Everybody's on the same page. We might not always agree, but we need to make sure that we're coming to a consensus on what needs to happen to move forward with these major projects. We also have a stakeholder advisory committee that will meet three times. We've we've already met once.

Uh we had a great turnout. Um almost 60 folks came to that meeting to uh provide input on what corridors were the most important to those agencies and the folks that they serve as well as major points of interest across Durham County. Um and then our technical advisory committee. These are uh technical partners from the partner agencies um also represented by the leadership team to weigh in on um operational details, capital decisions that have to be made um and engineering

feasibility. So, we're making sure to coordinate with our partners. These decisions aren't being made in a vacuum. We want to make sure that we're including our um our valued partners along the way.

So, public and stakeholder engagement. Round one is where we are right now. We're gathering feedback on our initial universe of corridors. We're hoping to receive input.

Um, we have some project goals and criteria that we're going to be using to evaluate these BRT corridors. We want to understand are these the ones are these the criteria that matter to the public, to our stakeholders, to our partners. Um, if we need to make some changes before our detailed evaluation. Um, that's what round two is for. Once we complete our technical evaluation of these BRT corridors, we'll bring that refined list of BRT projects and um investment strategies back to the public um back to our stakeholders and partners, gather more feedback um refine that list further for our final um plan and our final prioritized list that will also have a funding strategy for um commissioner review. So our technical

timeline right now we are evaluating our uh criteria and our metrics that we will use to rank our uh corridors in terms of their competitiveness. And as we go through these corridors we're identifying problem areas uh what issues are we trying to solve with BRT and what issues are are going to make the biggest impact once solved with these major transit investments. Um after that we're going to move into our network analysis. We've already started a highle review of these corridors, but we're really going to get into the weeds um with our technical analysis.

And at our next update, we'll have a a really meaty update for you on um the results of that analysis. Um we'll have alternatives development and ridership analysis. We are doing an initial stops modeling to understand with this prioritized list of corridors um how can we um maximize ridership potential to make sure that these investments are really giving us a bang for our buck. We want to be moving folks um that need this service the most and that are going to be using this service the most getting to and from work, doctor's

appointments, um school, all those educational opportunities. Um operating plans and engineering feasibility. This is where we're going to get into uh rough order magnitude c cost estimating. We want to understand if we're operating this at a level, is it 15 minutes, 10 minutes, five minutes to make this a competitive service, what's that going to cost?

And what are our capital needs going to be as far as vehicles? Um how are we going to operate this service reasonably? Are we going to, you know, how much ride ofway is going to have to be acquired? What is realistic to assume in in terms of dedicated bus way?

So, we'll be doing all those um estimations early on to make sure that we have an accurate as as accurate as possible um cost estimate. And then once we have our prioritized list, we'll be developing strategies for funding um and strategies for how to prioritize and phase in um those projects. So the University of Corridors, uh we want to make sure that we mention uh the city of Durham's project that they're moving forward with currently. Um the

central Durham BRT, the city of Durham is already, you know, moving into initial project development with that project. This is a city-led project. Um, it is distinct from this Durham BRT vision plan, but we are working together. We want to make sure that we are communicating a message to the public that's not confusing.

Um, we will be including the central BRT corridor as part of this prioritized list of BRT projects. Um, the funding for that, um, the operating plans for that, that will all be a part of this plan, included as any other corridor would be. It's just that this corridor is a little farther along in its development than the other corridors. Um the corridor is 5 miles long running from Duke VA to the village via downtown. Um again, this is very essential that we coordinate with the city of Durham and which is why the city is part of our leadership team and part of our technical team. We want to make sure that we're we're on the same page as far as how we're evaluating these corridors and what level of operation

and investment we should assume on the central BRT corridor as we're prioritizing funding for other potential corridors. Um, but this will uh be all wrapped up into one plan. Um, and all assumptions being made about the central BRT will be included in our project as well. So, the universe of corridors as it stands right now, this is aside from any public or stakeholder input that we've received to date.

Um, this is just kind of where we started and what we presented to the public. Again, these corridors originated from a wealth of previous plans and studies that have already been completed for Durham County and in the region identifying corridors. So the corridors you see here highlighted on the screen in purple is the central BRT corridor which is by the way one of the highest ridership corridors. It's route three, route six.

Um route three going to the village is absolutely the highest ridership route in the city of Durham. Um the village is the second highest ridership stop outside of Durham station. Um so this is definitely an important corridor and one

that we we've noted on all our materials. Um the local corridors that you see are ones that have already been identified to receive investments um in operating frequency. So 15 minutes or better. They either already operate that frequently or they are going to um at some point within the Durham County transit plan.

So that means that there's demand that's been identified along that corridor or demand that is already being served along that corridor and major destinations, major employers, u major residential hubs that we need to pay attention to um that's already being funded. How can we build on these investments? the regional corridors 15501 54 I40 um US7 these are all corridors that have been identified through um other studies and the Durham County transit plan as having major demand um serving major commuter bases this BRT service would look a little different obviously there won't be stops along the side of I40 um but there would be um how you know how can we imagine a

service that would be more dedicated um you know we do have bus on shoulder across the triangle in some places. How can we improve upon that to make bus service even more reliable in between our major hubs like downtown Raleigh, downtown Durham, and Chapel Hill? But you can see here these routes highlight route four, route 9, which have been identified for 15-minute improvements, route 5, route 10 that already have 15-minute improvements. Um, so we want to make sure that we're we're highlighting these investments that have already been made.

So, building on the goals that were already identified through the Durham County Transit Plan, these were developed in conjunction with project partners through that process as well as the public and stakeholders. Folks have already signed off on these is what I'm saying. So, we're we're building on these and developing criteria that reflect these goals. So, access, connectivity, convenience, and deliverability. um with a major emphasis um on deliverability. We are saving that

criteria um that's going to be a really in-depth evaluation that we'll push forward in our next phase. Um our high level evaluation of corridors um are looking at access, connectivity, and convenience. Um currently, but we want to make sure that we're focusing on how can we maximize access to this high-capacity, frequent network, this really quality service for the most amount of Durham residents. um connectivity, where where are these routes going to go?

Um how can we ensure that folks are going to get to be connected to a variety of uh trip sources? And then convenience. Is this actually going to be competitive with single occupancy vehicles? How can we encourage folks to use this system um once we've assigned quite a bit of funds to it? So, the criteria, we'll go into detail when we have more to show on our actual evaluation, but access, we want to make sure that we're showing a diversity of trip types along these corridors. So, can you drop your child off at daycare, go to the grocery store, get to work,

can you pop into the urgent care, um take that night class? How many uh uses can we put along these corridors? um intersection density. We're looking at how can folks access this route.

If it's along a corridor that has been historically um you know lacked investment in pedestrian infrastructure, we don't want to penalize the corridors because of that. So we see this as an opportunity to build sidewalks, build those signalized intersections, those safe crossing opportunities. Um where do we have the most opportunity to do that and improve pedestrian safety? because as we know um the vast majority of folks start and end their transit trip as a pedestrian.

So we want to make sure that we're enhancing safety in that which brings us to our next criteria safety. So we're taking a look at the high injury network as a way to kind of pinpoint where these investments in pedestrian bicycle safety will make the biggest difference. So we're seeing uh the places along the corridor that have the highest instance of injury as a

plus. So if we can locate BRT there and use our investments to increase safety, that's going to be a real benefit. That's going to raise the score of that corridor connectivity, transit supportive land uses, um planned transit supportive land uses, density. So we want to make sure that we are building along dense corridors that have access to jobs, housing, and affordable housing specifically.

So we are working with our partners to find the best definition of what affordable housing could be. um you know, different folks have different definitions of what that is and we want to make sure that we're aligned with um the county um residents and our our boards on that. Um convenience, travel time. Again, we want to entice folks to use this service.

Um is this actually going to be more convenient than driving, parking, paying for parking. Um so looking at current ridership along these corridors and estimated future ridership and then deliverability. We have to make sure that we can actually deliver and build these projects. So, how likely is it that we can afford um

purchase the right the necessary right of way um acquire those partnerships that will um you know push this forward as far as competitive um federal funding applications and how much is this going to cost? So, can we actually pay for it with our local match um that we have available through the Durham County Transit Plan? Um we just want to make sure that these are realistic projects that can be delivered within a reasonable amount of time. So next steps, we're going to screen the universe of corridors.

This universe of corridors will look a little different by the time we enter into screening based on the public and stakeholder feedback that we've received um highlighting maybe extensions of the corridors that we initially proposed um different corridors that were initially proposed. So we want to make sure that we um our value we heard the public were repeating back to them what they heard um what we heard. you suggested these other corridors. We've looked at them. Maybe some are competitive or provide a case for some sort of transit

investment. It might not be the best for BRT, but we want to make sure that we're acknowledging that the feedback that folks give us. Um, and then refine the corridor alternatives using the evaluation criteria that we showed um and then presenting that refined list. So, we do have some public workshops coming up.

We've had a couple pop-ups and workshops already, but our next workshop will be on Thursday evening at Durham Station and the upstairs portion. Um, and then we have a virtual meeting which um we'll be working with our partners at um Durham Access and Go Triangle Parransit to get the word out on those to make sure that we're able to capture um all of our transit riders and all the folks that might not be able to join in person. But we have quite a bit of materials that we would love it and we have some social media reels ready to go if we can rely on our board of county commissioner partners to get the word out about our survey and um opportunities for input. And that's it.

>> All righty. Thank you so much for that presentation. I really appreciate it. I'm going to open it up the floor to the

um commissioners, Michelle, and then we'll go over to Wendy. >> Uh [clears throat] thank you so much. Um, I think the question I have is first of all, I like the idea of bus rapid transit because we need more transit in this region, right? How does this not turn into the light rail situation or this is just a totally different process because so much was invested into the light rail and then it didn't come to fruition.

So, um, [clears throat] yeah, how how is this different? >> That's a great question. Um, Ellen, did you want to flag that first or I'm happy to [clears throat] jump in? >> I mean, I can make a few few statements about that.

Um, so in comparison to the light rail, uh, BRT is much more flexible, right? It's bus service um, generally on existing roadways and ways that you can improve those roadways. Um, there are more options for how to do

that. you know, where to make compromises where maybe maybe you can't add a bus lane because the rideway is constrained. Um, but you can still, you know, develop a BRT system even within those constraints. So, so I would say in general like BRT is going to be a lot more flexible um to roll with those sorts of things that we don't know at this point um and figure out a way forward.

Um you know and and then and then also you know just in general like we have um we have significantly changed the way that we manage uh these funds um over the past few years. It's been a big transition um with um you know Go Triangle taking the lead previously and now it's much more of a shared responsibility. Um the board of commissioners and Go Triangle both approve the budget every year. Um and um we have additional staff involved at a higher level too. So, I think that we've done a number of things to add kind of

more oversight um and checks along the way that um we hope, you know, should minimize um the issues that we had with the light rail >> and you're needing our approval to fund this process to go ahead and or you're just I'm Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out is you're just giving us information or do we need to approve do something. I guess that's what we need to do, right? >> Um today is just for information. U as described, we're early in the planning process.

So, we're just describing the process that we're embarking on and um you know, we intend to come back later, you know, and at the end of the the uh planning process, there will be a recommendation for a basically a CIP. You know, I was glad that that Doug [laughter] and Jeremy presented right before this uh emphasizing the importance of the CIP. That's essentially what this is going to be. It's going to be outlining the projects

and the funding over a period of time that we need to plan for and reserve. Um, so it's it's a it's an ex it's a continuation and an extension of the Durham transit plan that was approved in 23 looking specifically at bus rapid transit uh so that we can plan you know appropriately for that expenditure over time. Um and then you know also then on an annual basis the work program comes to this board um for approval and that is approving the specific budget amount each year for projects. So this is this is developing the long range plan the vision right and then later on you'll receive requests to approve the budget year after year after year.

These are long-term projects so there is a lot of planning involved. Um, and even once we initiate a project, it may take, you know, 5 to 10 years for a project to get done. >> Yeah, I'm seeing like a lot of these projects are long term. So, I think this

is great. You know, we need transit and yeah, it's [clears throat] when I drive on 40 even on 885 and that was just built and it's just very congested and I think, you know, we have to we have to do something. So, this is great. I appreciate you all presenting.

So, thank you, >> Commissioner Jacobs. >> Well, thank you so much. This is very, very exciting. Um, we're we're playing catchup here on BRT because, um, Chapel Hill has been working on their North South BRT for a while, although they don't have the funding resources that we have for building it.

and Wake County is um moving forward with their first BRT project. So, we're we're the we're the glue in the middle between um Wake County and Orange County. And I think it's also important to remember that,

and you pointed this out in the presentation, that this is also going to be regional connections. We want to be able to connect up what we're doing to um wake and orange and RTP. Um so la uh talk about um Commissioner Burton, you mentioned that we have a lot where to we have a long ways to go. Portland um which was my first time there.

They have six light rail routes. They started their first light rail in the 1980s. So you're talking about a city that has been investing in transportation and transit for literally, you know, 40 40 years. And they also have um you know, everything BRT and tram and um yeah, a um the what is it?

The little >> street car. >> The street car. Thank you. Um, but I

spent the afternoon actually going on one of their big BRT projects. The, um, it's called the FX um, which goes down Division Street. It's 15 miles long and it has, um, let me see how many stops. It was huge. U of they had 47 stations and so I I traveled on that and I learned so much from that and it was really interesting to see a BRT which I think is going to be similar what we're going to have here is sometimes the BRT was had its own lane but a lot of times it was just right in traffic and I saw the BR RT would just stop and the cars would have to wait behind it and people were used to that. Um, and so

it can be done. I mean, I think for me it was inspiring to see that BRT is it's very flexible. It may not, you know, we may not be able to have dedicated lanes, but people figure out how to make it work. And um what one of my other takeaways was the importance of having branding because they had a certain um bus a certain BRT stop had their own shelters.

They were the distinct design and color and so you know it was very identifiable and then the level they had these huge buses articulated and it was level boarding. So when the bus pulled up it felt like you're getting on a train. It did not feel like you're getting on a bus. The doors all open at once. the platform is at the

same level and you just people just get on and the doors close and it just keeps moving. And so I think as um if it was really helpful to see what it really feels like um to have a BRT and this BRT is serving actually the largest remaining um they called it enclave but basically this area of um most diversity in the entire state of Oregon. [clears throat] uh this this certain BRT route. And I just I I just want to also highlight you you also mentioned this as well in your presentation, but I really learned about how this project was also about complete streets. And so one of my questions to you is like are we going to also be looking at that because they made sure that it was very safe so that when people are

getting off the BRT crossing the street or getting to it or the sidewalk connections in the neighborhoods like it was almost like a safety project. So that's one of my questions is how and then also sometimes they had bus lanes that they put in. I mean bike lanes. Sometimes the bike lanes went in front of the BRT stop.

Sometimes they went behind the BRT stop. And they also worked really closely with the business owners because um they were very sensitive that when they put a stop in front of a business that they worked with the business to make sure it actually improved what was h you know getting in and out of the business or if they had outdoor seating the landscaping. Um, so that was the other thing I learned. And then also around community

and economic development, they worked with the community around where the stop should be and bringing making sure there were bis like actual business opportunities for the local community to be a part of the projects. have contracts, subcontracts, even cleaning the best shelters was bid to local people. Um and also around the land use they have completely tied their B this BRT project I went on to identifying any public land and trying to do workforce housing or affordable housing on that land and also again the local businesses because there will be an impact act and if we're not being

honest about the impact now and making sure that we leverage it for the community then I think we are really not learning from what other people have done and and I would like to hear I hope the central BRT that's happening now will come and present to us because I really want to hear how they are thinking ahead to those impacts acts like at the village. Um, if we're not thinking about that, then we're not doing our job. So, those are all my questions in terms of this process. If you could kind of elaborate on on all of those or any of those, [laughter] >> I'll I'll start.

Um, thank you, Commissioner Jacobs, for those um thoughtful questions. So agreed branding is going to be key in having this be a recognizable service that feels different than just local bus. Not that

local bus isn't also a huge important piece of this transit puzzle in Durham County. BRT is not going to work everywhere. Um we just need straight up frequent bus in a lot of places. Um but safety is a huge factor.

Um identifying places for improved pedestrian access. those sidewalks. We have a lot of places in Durham where people are just walking along ditches to get to their bus stop. So places that we can identify where is the demand heavy and where we can improve pedestrian access with sidewalks.

That's going to be a huge factor. Um and then not just the sidewalks themselves, but signalized intersections and sidewalks that lead to and from the bus stops connecting to the next signalized intersection. Um, I think that's a great point as far as uh publicly owned land along corridors. Transit supportive land use and affordable housing are both major focuses of how we will evaluate these corridors and where the opportunities are. Um, whether it's existing affordable housing or the opportunity um to develop that um deliverability

obviously if it's publicly owned land it's going to be easier to deliver that and partner with the agency if you yourself are the agency. So we all we will look at that. So I think publicly owned land that kind of provides um connectivity to the or improves the opportunity for the development of affordable um dense development um and the likelihood that you'll be able to successfully build this. So those are definitely things that we're considering and branding is it just makes it more exciting.

It makes it a more fun project and it does it does feel different. It feels like a different service. So it yes great questions. Thank you.

Anything to add, Ellen? >> Um, yeah. So, this isn't these are major projects and I want to emphasize that being able to add those sorts of things, the complete streets elements um costs money, right? Um, and this there, as noted, we are going to be looking at how um competitive these projects are for federal funding. Um, you know, generally

BRT projects are funded about half federal funding and half non-federal funding. So it gives us an opportunity to bring in additional revenues and leverage federal funding to do those bigger projects. Um so we'll be looking at that. Um you know there may be places though where uh we don't want to look at federal funding, right?

But in general those would be you know smaller scale projects, smaller scale improvements. Um so I want to emphasize that. Um and we definitely can uh request a presentation of the central Durham BRT at a future meeting so I can work on that. I just want Bob, it is less expensive when you're not building dedicated lanes.

Will you be also show doing comparisons like price per mile based on whether we do a dedicated lane versus integrating it into existing infrastructure? >> Yes. So part of our calculation of

estimated, you know, rough order magnitude um costs and engineering feasibility, we'll be looking at, you know, the the trade-off between travel time competitiveness and the cost of acquiring right of way, what that looks like, how much right of way would even be feasible to acquire. Um so that's why uh the public and our stakeholders and the board of commissioners uh feedback on what criteria is the most important because there will be these trade-offs presented to us. um purchasing right ofway, constructing a dedicated bus lane, that does increase the cost of a service. Um even if it's just for a station and not a lane um so we do want to make sure that we are thinking about that.

Um but if we are looking at the quality BR the quality of the BRT service um having it be as dedicated as possible is obviously the most um the most impactful as far as speeding up the travel time. And then again, I I'll say regional BRT service looks a lot different than local. So if we're talking about um

roads that have capacity now for potential improvements to for example um along the shoulder on I40 or on 15501 there's a large median, you know, could what could we do with that? So there are those opportunities um to think about, but the operating environment is a little different. um when we have these local roads um like Roxboro um that's like Fagatville there's a lot of demand but there's also it's it's tight so we could make it very competitive but it also would be costly but maybe that's okay if the priority is travel time competitiveness and meeting the highest demand >> yeah um thank you for this I appreciate it I'm on the gold triangle board of trustees so I've been hearing about this and various factors, you know, for a while now. So, I'm really excited about this going forward. I really like the the slide you had that had the project goals and so forth. Um, is there any um

do you all have any plans for intermediary reporting back to us to let us know it's on track? you know, like so the goals you all had were kind of at the end of once everything's working, this is what our goals want to be. But I want to make sure that we have uh the ability, the insight to see as the projects go, as the project goes, as we're moving forward, that we're actually on track. Do we have reporting uh practices or do you all have plans to report as we go, as the project is moving?

Um, and what does that look like? >> So, I think the short answer is yes, but by nature of this plan being a generational vision, it'll be project by project. So, for the Central Durham BRT, we'll be having uh reporting on that every 6 months as part of our transit tracker dashboard, which was launched earlier this year, and we'll get regular updates on that. are constantly

coordinating with the city as that project progresses and I know they're in the process of selecting a consultant now for 30% design for the central Durham BRT and I expect that as we do more of these BRT projects over the next several decades we'll have similar reporting for those projects too. >> Thank you. >> Thank you guys so much. Sorry I missed your presentation, but from hearing the discussion, I know that you guys did a great job and this is a project that I've just been excited about and super supportive of us having faster transit, more accessible transit.

So, thank you for all your work. >> Thank you all. >> The next item that brings us to is the county grant landscape. Um, and [clears throat] we have Miss Joanne Pierce leading this one as well as I think is director clap. Oh, we have several folks coming up.

>> Good afternoon, commissioners and uh county manager, county attorney. Um, we are here before you today um because we wanted to uh provide you with a real time up-to-date um uh status snapshot of recent developments. Um I'm here with Cooperative Extension, our director and our um Durham County food security coordinator. Um also um our public health director and social services director.

They send their regrets. They're in other meetings as you might imagine. Um, so we're going to get started and I'm actually going to um punt it to our our food security coordinator um so that we can provide you with a more seamless update and then um we're here if you have any questions. Thank you.

>> Okay, great. Thank you. Um hello commissioners, hello county manager. Um thanks so much for having us today. There's a lot going on with federal

nutrition and related things. So, we did want to give you an update. Um, we've been hearing a lot mostly about SNAP. Um, so I'm going to talk about SNAP and I'm also going to check in about WICK.

Um, so our update um for SNAP, so um I think we most of us know it's the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. the benefits are currently paused due to the um federal government shutdown. So there were there was enough federal funding for October but not November. Um and there's been lots of interesting news which we'll talk about in the next slide.

But um just so we kind of know um why. So USDA indicated to states that they needed to hold benefits for November because there was not enough federal funding. um due to the shutdown. And a reminder of what that means uh for Durham um for our SNAP beneficiaries in

Durham, there's over 32,000 residents that receive SNAP. Um we know that a large majority of these um recipients include um children, include households with children and then our older population. Um and it's a lot of federal funding. So, um, just for November, it's close to $6 million in benefits that, um, are being held right now because of the shutdown.

Um, I did want to note that in North Carolina, SNAP benefits are dispersed on a staggered schedule. So, based on recipients social security numbers. Um, and this happens all the way from the 3rd of the month to the 21st of the month. So, wanted to mention that because today, November 3rd would be the first day that some SNAP recipients are not receiving their funds for November. Um, and then some um people on SNAP receive benefits for October um on the 21st, which was a couple weeks ago, but

not not a whole month ago. Um, so there's been this federal ruling. There were two federal rulings on Friday, um, that many of us, I think, [snorts] saw. It was all over the news, even for those that weren't just looking for food security stuff.

So, um, two different federal judges, one in Rhode Island and one in Massachusetts, uh, ruled that USDA must release the contingency funds, [snorts] um, to pay for SNAP benefits. So, these are emergency funds that USDA has um for an emergency that happens during a shutdown and the judges said, you know, this counts as an emergency. Um they there is not enough funding to cover all of the benefits for everybody in the country. Um USDA needed to inform the courts of their plan today. And um just in the past hour, we learned that USDA said that they would pay partial benefits for SNAP. So I believe what

this means is they are going to use the contingency funds to pay what they can for SNAP but the judges had also um asked them to find other funding or maybe they identified other funding they could use and USDA has said they're not going to do that. They're just going to do the partial benefits. Um and we don't know how long it will take for it to get to people. Um so everything that um is being reported is that it might take several weeks and from my understanding the USDA now it's up to them.

I think they they can determine how they want to do partial benefits. Um this has never happened before. SNAP has never been held during a shutdown. Uh but from my understanding, I believe they can decide if they want to release them to people that they think are most vulnerable or if they want to do the exact proportion of partial benefits for everyone. But those are details we do not know yet.

Um just real quick before I go to Wick, I just want to share um director uh Clap from DSS shared that there is already a huge increase in calls and visits at DSS. So, um this uh the SNAP situation combined with other um policy things going on that are making it just hard for families um to afford basics. DSS is already seeing this. And then for WIC, so our special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants, and children.

Good news today is that North Carolina um announced that they are funding SNAP through or I'm sorry, Wick through November 30th. So the state um agreed to fill in any funding gaps that um they might have because of the government shutdown through November. Uh after November 30th, funding is not guaranteed. Uh there's a lot of federal news about this too. A lot of our

advocacy organizations, anti-hunger advocacy like frack and then the national wick association, they're advocating for continued wick funding both during the shutdown and throughout um fiscal year 2026. [gasps] Um and wanted to we wanted to share um our county response through many of our departments. Um, DSS is leading a Deco employee food drive. There's so many of our great employees that want to help our community right now.

We're collecting items through November 7th. Um, and then they will be distributed starting November 13th. Employees are being asked to donate items and also there will be volunteer opportunities for um PE employees that want to use some of their volunteer time to pack up some of the food. Um and we um did a collaborative effort was able to kind of do a rapid response with community food resources uh to ensure

that the community knows where to go to find help and also how to help if people want have funding or food to donate. Um so this includes resources um again for people who need to find food and those who want to help. And this was a really great quick um collaboration between our public information office, public health, especially our dine team, and then cooperative extension. Um and I'm just going to show you um the flyer on the left is um we wanted to create just a very easy to access flyer since there's so much going on.

um with some of the biggest resources and then it leads to the QR code which takes you to the new community food resource pages on our Durham County website. Um that is just like a little snippet. There's a lot of resources on there, but just wanted to show you because I think this is a great way to get accurate information to people. Um, we want people to know where they can go for

help. And we also know our emergency food system is um really overstrained. They were already having pantries were already having to turn people away before this. We were hearing um again because of everything going on.

Families are just in a tough spot. Um, so we wanted to make sure that um, people knew that they could also donate to support these food pantries. Um, and that financial donations are often really appreciated. Um, food donations are as well, but the financial helps them to just stretch the food further.

We um hear often often from food banks that for every meal um a food bank provides or food pantry or food bank, SNAP provides nine meals. So our food banks and food pantries are not supposed to be um where people go to get all their food, but we know right now that they are for many families. Um and then our amazing community is

doing a lot and we just wanted to highlight highlight a few things going on. Um there's so much information being shared um on neighborhood list serves on different organizations. It's it's everywhere. Neighborhoods and organizations are hosting emergency food drives.

Uh there's some businesses that are giving away free food to SNAP recipients. Nobody asked them to. they just wanted to make sure to take care of our community. Um, and then a collective of 15 food pantries is continuing.

Um, they're working on a long-term donation campaign. We knew that something like this was coming. Um, and these pantries along with a lot of support from public health and our food security network um are working to uh get some donations both um from businesses and uh individuals to help sustain them over this um continued time of increased need. And then at Cooperative Extension,

we're excited. We're hosting a turkey distribution and virtual cooking class event for food insecure families. Um the class will be right before Thanksgiving so we can um everyone kind of have reminders about turkey uh food safety. There's a lot that goes in there.

Um and then the turkeys will be available for pickup um so they would be ready to serve for Thanksgiving so people can Yeah. >> And I'll say we will be distributing 400 turkeys as of now. that's based on the funding. We're also partnering so we will prioritize some of our welcome baby um client population who are food insecure and um we are also partnering with Durham Tech on this initiative.

Um and I believe we were going to be renting a freezer truck for our parking lot for a period of time. Um so we are we had already had these again some of these plans in the works. I think the community was already very aware um that there were a lot of risks to our SNAP benefits especially with some of the new requirements that are coming down as well. So I think there's been a lot of mobilization and that has also paid off

for some of the quick responses in November. Um and I just want to acknowledge all our colleagues in you know DSS um and public health um and Raina's Raina's work for just coming together so quickly and continuing to to bring good data and good information. Um it's such a rapidly evolving situation. I'm sure you know I think we actually had two pieces of information that we didn't know when we started typing this a couple of hours ago.

So, um um it is rapidly evolving and um we'll keep trying to be as informative as we can. >> And I just want to add uh thank you to Cooperative Extinction because we thought we were like we're just going to share with you verbally, but we thought that it was really important for you to see this and have something in your hands to, you know, read and path along if you needed to have the information. And I just wanted to highlight the point that Raina made about Wick, how important that is. That's the supplemental um program for women, infant and children. But also that is designed to support um families. And the items that you get with that which are just quite

critical would be um uh when you look at uh uh milk, eggs, fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and baby formula. So I just wanted to and nutrition education and and breastfeeding support. So, I just wanted to just emphasize how critical that is and we're thankful that the state will um fill in the gap, but then just wanted you to know what those things were. Thank you.

>> Thank you [clears throat] all so much. Yeah, I know. It's really great to see how our neighbors and like how the county is stepping up because it is really scary and I know all of us at this DIS like are very blessed that you know we're not having to deal with the concern of losing our wick benefits. So, it's really terrifying for so many of our neighbors. So, I appreciate the rapid work that you guys are doing and I know it's probably odd hours that you are also working with just how everything is unfolding. So, just really want to extend my gratitude to you guys

for taking care of our neighbors the way that you do. Um, I know there are also uh the cooperative extension also has not related to food, but they also have the coat drive coming up too, the winter coat drive. Yeah, that starts on November 14th and runs through I think January 9th. And I and I will say I think I think after this initial push I think uplifting um community resources that provide other basic needs to families are really important because if we can offset somebody's cost and food with providing some other item that they need then that's helpful.

So the coat drive will collect coats for um young children ages zero to eight in terms of the sizes of a coat and newborn to eight. And there will be collection bins um at cooperative extension and libraries and various sites. And I think the press release is going out this week. So, yeah.

>> Great. Thank you so much. And I'll reach out. I serve now on the Downtown Durham, Inc. board. I'll ask Nicole maybe if like some of our other businesses in downtown Durham can like set up either

collection bins that maybe we could coordinate with them for the coats as well as like food donations that just have more places for people to drop off. I will say for the food donations, there have been um efforts that are on the way underway because of um our call to action and I definitely want to acknowledge them. Um there have been so many partners within the county uh including our employees who are helping to fill up the bins and would also like to elevate the city of Dorm who's also um initiating an employeeled food drive as well and have elevated um the community outreach piece. Durham is so fortunate to have such a compassionate community and those who are willing to support those in in need and we are all fortunate that um we live in this kind of community and we're it's also fortunate when you can give. So for

those of you who can't afford to give, do so. >> And one last thing I would love for us, and it doesn't have to be right now, but as hopefully something like this doesn't happen again, but god forbid it does, I think it's important for us to also collect data from like our other county services and departments. As Raina was mentioning, when folks have this new need that they're not able to have the wick support that they're going to be relying on rental assistance more, they're going to be relying on more of our public health services. If we can like track the data of like how when incidents like when situations like this happen where wick is being cut, how do our services and the need of the community in other areas increase? And then Commissioner Burton Yes, and thank you all for this information. One of the things I was thinking about is making sure the lines of communication are out there because

for example, I think about all the kids in Durham public schools whose parents whose families depend on SNAP benefits and wick and making sure this information shows up in a myriad of ways. make sure it's on the DPS website, the city of Durham's website, even getting the DPS foundation to get this information out because I know that many people in Durham County may not necessarily come to the Durham County website, but they'll go to their school website. also with um DPS does ROOC calls like getting this information really out there because this is unprecedented um with SNAP food stamps just stopping and I'm very concerned about wick um that that is not funded because so many mothers need the formula to feed their babies and I don't know if you you all remember when there was a shortage of formula and that was a crisis. Um, so really

working collab, we have to all work together to make sure we get the information out so people will know where to look. Even if they don't necessarily look on the deco website, they know it's on the city of Durham, Durham public schools, getting it out there. I know I have shared that information on my Instagram and my Facebook page um to make sure you know other people are able to share it so we can make sure people get the food that they need. So, thank you all for this work and um we're just going to have to lean on each other to get through this.

So, thank you. >> Thank you so much, Commissioner Burton. Um just want to say that's a great point about sharing the resources. Our dine team did share um a lot of this with DPS and we'll check in to make sure they have the most updated resources.

And then I believe manager Hager in your email you said you shared with the city. Yeah, I shared with the city as well as um Durham the superintendent as well. I will say um I should have mentioned them

earlier. Durham public schools is also starting um some campaigns. I got as a Durham public schools parent. I received my notice to make as to help contribute.

So, um, our partners throughout the county, they are they are doing their part, but thank you for making sure that it's posted on websites. Y >> Yeah, that's great. And I did just want to say the school meals are still free for DPS. Breakfast and lunch for every student.

No applications needed. I think that is one of the most important food security resources. And um people don't a lot of people don't know that. They might think this year they're not free or they didn't even realize they were free for everybody or that they're affected by the shutdown, but as of now they're not. They're running completely normally. Um, and we know that every student that um receives the school meal, even if it's a student who has the resources to bring breakfast or lunch,

if they receive the school meal, then that is more um federal reimbursement going to DPS. It also just creates a better um community um feeling to meals and reduces stigma. So, we're trying to really encourage every student um who can to uh participate in free breakfast and lunch with DPS. I just wanted to say thank you all for this presentation.

I'm hoping like my colleague Michelle said, we can get this out further and further. Obviously, we're starting to get more and more emails, more and more contacts about this. And um I just really appreciate the work you all are doing. Um um the issues with SNAP like we had been hearing about that for a little while like this challenges you not even just the shutdown thing just the the challenges from this administration. So I appreciate you all being ahead of the curve here but also getting this information out all these programs. I actually saw this on Instagram the flyer

on Instagram and I reshared it. So that means it's definitely getting around and um but I just just wanted to thank you all for this. This is great great and timely information and it can really make a big it it will really make a big difference. >> And thank you to our public information office um for pushing out the policy updates and also um this information and sharing with our partners. >> Thank you team Durham. Um yeah, just to it re reiterate um I I do think um this is a followup [laughter] uh kind of the crisis that we dealt with and during CO we really saw everyone pull together and respond and I've you know I've really been out of town for about 10 days and I've been amazed you know not only Durham county staff,

employees stepping up and departments, but really the entire community. Uh I've seen on social media community, you know, mutual aid and community fridges and just so many different groups of people that are stepping up because I want to be clear um that and and I've I think we need to be very clear about this that Durham County government cannot make up the $6 million a month that's of SNAP benefits because I've also seen some comments about that and it unfortunately there's literally no local government in the United States, no county government, no city government that can step in and provide this type of funding. So, it really is going to take our entire community

um at this moment and it could go on for a very long time. Um and I do believe that we can do it and that we will do it. Um I also think it's important for people to understand that SNAP is a federal program. North Carolina is one of 10 states in the country where it is administered by the state. And that is another challenge for us because right now I know um Raina and I are are part of and Maggie are part of a national SNAP group and of the 10 states and right now our state general assembly is one of the few that has not stepped in to provide um some supplemental SNAP funding at this time. um we really need the general assembly to take action on SNAP and it it is up

to them to do that. So I I just also want to be really clear that there are additional things that our state general assembly can do and should do. Um and I I also agree that we've this is a great opportunity to really work together on communication because we know for instance the city pe um has a lot more staff for um getting out information and so all of us working together and of course the schools. I think this whole issue what you just shared with us Raina about the wick benefits lasting till the 30th.

Now, we know there will be some partial SNAP funding. We don't know when when. I think we as as much as we can get this out to the community to try to reduce stress on people [snorts] because this has got to be incredibly stressful for our families. So, um so thank you. Thank you.

>> Thank you. Thank you all so much. Appreciate you. Okay.

Now, I will pass it to Attorney Williamson for our boards and commission appointments. Do we need to suspend the rules for this item since it's technically a vote? Yeah. Okay.

Okay. I'll entertain a motion to suspend the rules. So, move. >> I'll second.

>> Moved by Commissioner Burton, second by Vice Sher Dr. Lee. All in favor say I. I.

>> Any opposed? Okay, we are suspended of the rules. Attorney Williamson. >> Okay.

Good afternoon. Yes. Um, so we have one vacant position on the Discover board. I'm sorry, Discover Durham Tourism Development Authority and the board has selected Ron Wood for that position.

Congratulation, Mr. Wood. >> Thank you, Attorney Williamson. Congratulations, Mr. Wood, for your appointment. And thank you so much to

everyone else who has applied. Um we have lots of boards and commissions for you to serve on that. I hope you will look into them. We now have a we're going to go into close session.

1183. I'll entertain a motion. >> So moved. >> Second.

>> Okay. Moved by Commissioner Burton, seconded by Commissioner Jacobs. All in favor say I. >> I. >> I. We are in close session.

Oh, commissioners met in Close section closed session. Um, no action was taken but direction was given to staff regarding pending litigation. I will now well no we're adjourned. I don't need to entertain a motion to adjurnn. We are adjourned. Thank you.